


Murder at Mill Cottage

by vvj5 (lost_spook)



Category: Doctor Who (1963), Miss Marple - Agatha Christie
Genre: Alternate Universe - Detectives, Gen, Humor, Metafiction, Murder Mystery, POV First Person, This Time Round
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-13
Updated: 2014-12-18
Packaged: 2018-02-25 05:45:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 25,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2610632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lost_spook/pseuds/vvj5
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dr Sullivan's finally got a nice little practice in the country, just like he always wanted - except it turns out there's a murderer at large.  It's lucky for him he's got help from a visiting journalist, and, of course, his favourite little old lady, Miss Marple...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dr Sullivan In Practice

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written some years ago for [This Time Round](http://www.ttrarchive.com/), the place where Doctor Who characters go outside of reality. It reads (mostly) as a straight AU/Agatha Christie fusion, but it is a little more meta-ish/cracky round the edges as a result (e.g. some of the characters are more aware than others of the type of narrative they've been drawn into).
> 
> The original idea for Sarah and Harry in an Agatha Christie-style murder mystery came from Helen Fayle. I just stole it and wrote it.

I suppose it all began several months ago, heading for tea-time on a Tuesday, or a Thursday (but definitely not a Wednesday, as that’s when I do my stint at the hospital) when Polly Wright made an appointment to see me.

She had recently moved into our quiet little village and had caused quite a stir, being about a decade ahead of the rest of us, with her long blonde hair, short skirts and modern ways. 

Anyway, the point is that, as far as I knew, Miss Wright was perfectly healthy, so I was surprised to find her demanding to see a doctor, but there you go.

“I hope you don’t mind,” she said, once I’d shown her into the consulting room. I of course assured her that I didn’t, although it had to be said that the net curtains at the Chancellors’ had been twitching no end at her approach. One of the sisters must be home this afternoon.

Oh, now wait. I’m new to this writing lark – I suppose I’d better tell you who I am and where all this is taking place before we go any further. I acquired this little practice in a country village a few years ago, after my uncle retired. Before that I had been in the Navy as an MO for several years. Despite some awkward patients, it was everything I’d hoped for. Idyllic little village and well-set up small practice. All quite satisfactory.

Then Polly Wright came along to see me and nothing was quite the same again.

“Dr Sullivan,” she said, lowering her voice and leaning forward, “I’m terribly afraid that I’m going to die.”

I hadn’t pegged her for one of those nervous, fanciful sorts, but I had learnt to not to scoff at patients’ worries. (I learned that lesson pretty quickly, after I thought Lady Pollard was joking on her first visit.) “Perhaps if you told me what your symptoms were?” I tried.

“Well, isn’t it obvious?” she said, widening her dark eyes. “It’s a small, idyllic village with everything too perfect to be true and then I come along. It’s clearly one of those murder mystery stories and I’m a glamorous newcomer. They _always_ get murdered or have something horrible happen to them.”

I coughed. “So you’re not actually ill, Miss Wright?”

“Oh, no.”

I couldn’t work this out at all. I was not at all sure what she meant about us being in a murder mystery. Seemed a little unlikely to me in a nice sort of place like this, but if she believed it, she should have seen a policeman not a doctor. “Why did you come to me?”

“Well, when I heard that you were writing the narrative, I hoped that you might be able to give me some advice.”

This was a stumper and no mistake. I wondered if she was quite right in the head. “I do write a diary, as it happens, but I don’t see what that has to do with anything. I certainly don’t know anything about a murder. I think you’ve been reading too many penny dreadfuls, don’t you?”

Her eyes widened still further as a thought struck her. “You’re not the murderer, are you? That’s been known to happen.”

I couldn’t help being offended by this charming suggestion. “No, I’m not. And if that’s the sort of fellow you think I am, I’m surprised you came for a consultation. Fine sort of GP I’d be to go around murdering my patients. Soon put a damper on a practice, that would.”

“So you won’t help me?” She got to her feet, pulling her coat back on and heading for the door. “Then I hope you’re happy when I’m found strangled in a field or wherever and some interfering old lady is being pitying about my modern ways.”

I’m afraid to say I gaped at her and can’t have seemed very intelligent. What does a chap say to a girl in a situation like that?

“I’m sorry, Miss Wright,” I managed, “but I don’t see what else I can do. Now, if you had the measles, I expect I could sort you out in a trice, but I’m not from Scotland Yard.”

She smiled at last. “No, I can see that!”

*

I pushed it to the back of my mind, but I did worry that she might be mentally unbalanced and wondered whether I should have sent her to see one of those mind doctors.

However, I forgot about it soon enough and the only other unexpected thing to happen over the next few weeks was a queer sort of letter from Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, a retired military man who lives in the village.

 

 _Sullivan_ (the note read)

_Just dropping you a line to let you know I’m taking a prolonged holiday elsewhere and have rented my house out to a Colonel Mace. I hear that we’re about to be subjected to some wretched murder mystery and while I’m not one to worry about danger, I’m damned if I’m going to be a murderer or a suspect with a dark secret to be unearthed. Ten to one, I’d be forced to have an affair with some old harridan in the village and enough is enough. I only came here for some peace and quiet. I’d advise you to do the same, but I hear you’re the narrator, so I suspect it’s too late._

_Lethbridge-Stewart._

_PS You’re not the blasted murderer, are you?_

 

This was unaccountable, so I could only imagine that the Brigadier had decided to have some sort of joke at my expense, as it didn’t seem to be a message in code. (I even tried ironing it for invisible writing, but all that did was end up singeing the corners and Mrs Hudson told me off for daring to attempt using the iron, which, she says, should be left to those that know how and not attempted by mere males who don’t know the difference between a tea towel and a letter).

But really, it was quite mystifying. And why should everyone keep thinking I’m a murderer? Nice sort of doctor I’d make if that was the case, as I said to Miss Wright.

*

A few weeks later, I set off on my daily round. I suppose I’d better give you an idea of what our little village of Nether St Yorick is like. There’s the Squire, his wife, Lady Louisa and their daughter Charlotte. Now that the Brigadier has done a vanishing trick, Colonel Mace has got his house – he’s another retired military man. Unfortunately, unlike the Brigadier who’s a decent sort of chap (when he’s at home), the Colonel is one of those ex-colonials who will talk about tigers and what-not. Fascinating stuff, but he does tend to repeat himself. 

Next is Professor Smith, a recently arrived scientific chap, who’s renting out the Mill Cottage. He’s the one that Polly Wright works for; she’s his secretary (and still in the best of health, I might add, and exciting the disapproval of all the old tabbies). Then there’s Rev. Magister, the vicar, a charming, intelligent man (and his pretty, young wife). 

After that there are all the ladies of the village, who are a pretty formidable set. My favourite is little old Miss Marple, but there’s also the eccentric Miss Rumford and her friend, and that terrifying Mrs A who runs the tea shop – and that’s just for starters. If I describe them all at once your hair will stand on end. They dominate the village from behind their lace curtains, knitting needles and woollen cardigans and are more effective than the most efficient of secret police. 

*

Stopping off at the Post Office, I found Miss Marple all of a twitter because a young woman had arrived at The Dark Horse. Apparently the newcomer was a journalist who was writing an article about Professor Smith and his research. She seemed mostly approving, which is lucky for the girl, although Miss Maren, who runs the Post Office, said she was an outsider and didn’t approve of women running round doing men’s jobs for them. Seemed to think us chaps’d be getting lazy if that sort of thing went on.

“Times do change,” said Miss Marple gently. She patted my arm. “Now, have _you_ seen her, Dr Sullivan?”

I told her this was the first I’d heard of it, but I would keep an eye out for her.

“Oh, I think you should,” she said kindly. “So difficult for someone in a new place, isn’t it?”

Miss Maren shook her head and tutted. She believed that people should stay where they were put, as I knew without telling, since she’d voiced her opinion when I first moved in and my uncle left.

“I promise, Miss Marple,” I said.

Miss Marple rewarded me with a smile and then continued with posting her parcel and being very particular about the length of string used to tie it. 

*

I met the young lady sooner than I expected, as my next call was at Professor Smith’s. He rents Mill Cottage up the hill by the Brig’s house, and he frequently complains of various aches and pains, particularly in his knee. He is an elderly and irritable sufferer and not my favourite patient, but it’s not a doctor’s place to pick and choose. In this case, as the visitor was there when I called, my attention to duty was rewarded.

I knocked on the door and was shown in by Polly, who disappeared fairly swiftly after.

“What are you doing here?” demanded Professor Smith irascibly. “I’m busy!”

I said, “You did send for me, sir. Shall I have a look at that dodgy knee of yours while I’m here?”

He glared. “No. You won’t. I’m feeling perfectly well, young Suleman, and I’m talking to Miss Smith here.”

Miss Smith turned to me and smiled, holding out her hand in a friendly manner. “Hello. Dr Sullivan, isn’t it?”

“What? Oh, yes, that’s me,” I said, shaking her hand. “It’s a pleasure, Miss Smith.” I could see why Miss Marple approved. She had short brown hair, an attractive smile and a face that displayed an awful lot of character. 

She sat back down. “Professor Smith was kind enough to let me have an interview.”

“No relation, I trust?” I joked.

She sighed slightly and I had the feeling that she wasn’t any better pleased to see me than the old boy was. “It is a common name, Dr Sullivan.”

“Nobody wants you here, so go away,” ordered the professor, brandishing his cane at me.

I ignored that. “Well, let me know if anything starts playing up again. It was nice to meet you, Miss Smith. Good luck with your writing. Hope the accommodation at The Dark Horse is up to scratch.”

She glanced at me uncertainly.

“Oh, everyone knows everyone else’s business in the village,” I informed her cheerfully. “Change the colour of your curtains and the womenfolk around here will know before you do.”

She was hiding laughter at me – I’d not made a good first impression, I could tell. “I’ll take care not to change my curtains, then. And yes, Mrs Briggs is looking after me adequately, thank you.”

I did the only thing a chap could in the situation and took my leave of them. Still, I hoped I’d run into her again and get a chance to prove I wasn’t quite as useless as she clearly imagined.

*

My next port of call was up at the big house. Young Charlotte Pollard was recovering from a bout of chickenpox she’d somehow missed when she was younger and I’d promised that I’d pop by and see how she was getting on, although more because she was worried that she’d be fussed to death by her mother, Lady Louisa than for any other reason. As for the Squire, he was conspicuous by his absence as usual.

On the way, I passed Miss Rumford out walking her dog. “Morning, Sullivan,” she greeted me in her usual brisk, no-nonsense fashion. “Have you heard about this reporter gal who’s fetched up here?”

“Miss Marple told me,” I confessed. “And, what’s more, I met her myself up at Professor Smith’s.”

She surveyed me briefly and only said, “Hmph. Well, let’s hope she’s got more sense than that other girl of his.”

“Now, Miss Rumford,” I chided, “I don’t think you’ve any call to be unkind about Miss Wright.”

She said, “Haven’t I, now? Flighty, that’s the word for it. A man at sea for best and another in the next town for everyday.”

I decided to speak to her dog instead. “Well, now, and how are we today, K9?”

“Really,” she said as the metal dog raised its head to look at me, “you should know by now not to ask it silly, vague questions like that. Try again, Dr Sullivan.”

I blushed. “Are you well today, K9?”

“Perfectly functional,” he piped up. 

I made my excuses and walked on up towards the house. As I said, the women in this village could take over the world if they’d only agree on something for an instant.

*

“I feel all right now,” Charlotte Pollard – Charley – insisted after I gave her a brief check-up. “I can go to Alex’s birthday bash next weekend, can’t I? Tell Mother I’m well enough, Dr Sullivan.”

I grinned at her, as I replaced my stethoscope in my bag. “You behave yourself, Miss Pollard. All the same, Lady Pollard, I think your daughter’s well and truly on the mend now.”

“It’s not as if I look a sight anymore,” she added. “And I had to miss Bunty’s tennis party last week, as it is.”

I turned to her mother. “She’s quite right – no need to wrap her up in cotton wool any longer.”

“Good-o,” said Charley. “I think you’re a brick, Dr Sullivan. Shall I get you an invite to the party?”

I didn’t like to confess that I was never too keen on those sorts of things. “Don’t worry about it, Miss Pollard.”

Lady Louisa paused for a moment. “Did you come from Professor Smith again, Dr Sullivan? How is he?”

“Oh, as usual,” I replied. “He had a young journalist up, interviewing him about this research of his.”

She said dispassionately, “How interesting. And how is that secretary of his? I haven’t seen her about in the village as much lately. I trust that she is well?”

“As far as I can tell,” I said, not quite liking the question. Polly’s visit to me preyed on my mind from time to time.

“Thank you,” said Lady Louisa. “I’m sure you’re busy, doctor.”

I knew goodbye when I heard it. Well, most of the time anyway, but I’ll not bore you with that story. I made my farewells and headed back home for lunch.


	2. Murder at Midnight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Polly's prediction unfortunately comes true.

I was woken far too early the next morning, still half dazed by sleep and slowly realising that the telephone was ringing, its shrill voice shattering the grey peace of the pre-dawn hours.

I got out of bed and made it down the stairs in time to grab the receiver. “Yes? Sullivan here.” There was no doubt but that it would be bad news – some sudden illness, most likely. 

“Sullivan?” barked a voice at the other end of the line. I couldn’t quite place it yet, although I knew it was familiar. “We need you out here as soon as possible – I’m sending a car. It’ll be with you shortly, so be ready.”

I was left with the phone in my hand, slowly realising that it had been Inspector Mackenzie. Knowing how impatient he was, I got dressed as speedily as I could, grabbed my bag and coat and was ready just as the car pulled up the drive.

I was right. This was serious.

*

A few minutes later, I was with the Inspector himself, crouching over the dead body of Polly Wright.

*

The Inspector led me up the hill and then down into the copse of trees by the mill cottage and on to the spot where she was lying, near the stream, her face mottled and her eyes bulging. It didn’t take too detailed an examination to confirm that she had been strangled. 

I was feeling awfully bad about the whole thing. The poor girl had come to me and warned me that this might happen. It seemed obvious now that I could at the very least have given her the train fare out of here.

“Well?” prompted the inspector.

I turned. “She’s dead, sir.”

He looked back at me. “I can see that much for myself, Sullivan. I was hoping you’d fill in some of the fiddly details.”

“Oh,” I said, “yes, of course, sir. It’s a bit of a shock. I’m sorry. She seems to have been strangled – some sort of thin cord – you can see the marks quite clearly here.” I pointed to the tell-tale marks around her neck.

He nodded, pulling out his notebook and pencil. I couldn’t help feeling that there was something a little bit old-fashioned about our inspector. “And time of death?”

“She can’t have been here more than a few hours – I’d estimate three.”

He wrote that down, muttering, “Three hours,” under his breath. “Right. That gives us time of death at about –”

“Midnight,” I said for him as I worked it out. “A murderer with a sense of timing, eh?”

He wrote that down. “And there’s no sign of the murder weapon.”

“No,” I agreed, glancing around instinctively at his words. I thought about our conversation again. “I should say, Inspector, that this poor girl came and told me she thought this might happen.”

He paused, his pencil hovering above the narrow notepad. “She did, did she? And did she suspect anyone?”

“No, not specifically – well, me, actually, but of course –”

Inspector Mackenzie frowned. “Dr Sullivan, you haven’t been drinking, have you?”

“No,” I said, insulted and then explained the whole thing to him.

*

I went back home afterwards, intending to catch a couple of hours sleep before the day began in earnest, but all I landed was a nightmare or two.

I got up and set about trying to make myself some breakfast, which rattled Mrs Hudson when she arrived. She went on about horrible murders and men in the kitchen for the rest of the morning, in between telling me I looked a sight. I thought wistfully about getting a new housekeeper.

I still had some calls to make, so I set off as usual, the episode in the night feeling unreal by now, but it clearly wasn’t as no one I met wanted to talk about anything else. I have to admit that most people seemed to vaguely feel that it must have been Polly’s fault. Her dead face in my mind and the guilt still trailing me, I felt tempted to hit the next person who hinted as much.

*

As it turned out, the next person to corner me was Miss Smith. She was leaving the village shop and crossed over to me. 

“So,” she said, “I hear there’s been a murder and you know all about it.”

I paused. “Who told you that?”

“Miss Rumford, Miss Marple, Miss Smythe, Mrs Magister,” she said with a smile, “and then your Mrs Hudson was in the Chancellors’ shop. You did say that news travels fast here.”

“I’m afraid I do have some visits to make, Miss Smith.” I tried to look stern, but it failed (as usual) since she wasn’t noticeably daunted. 

“Yes, but I was thinking that, since I’m on the spot, you could help me write something up.”

I couldn’t help but be disturbed by the idea. “Miss Smith, some poor girl has been murdered and you want to let the papers know?”

“So it was a girl,” she said, taking notes, rather like Inspector Mackenzie. “And, yes. That’s what I do, Dr Sullivan. Besides, someone will come down and put it all in the papers anyway. If you let me know the details, I promise not to write the sort of scandal-mongering thing you’re so worried about.” Then she smiled at me brightly.

I supposed it made sense, but I hesitated.

“Who knows?” she said. “Maybe we can solve the mystery?”

I gave in. “It was Polly Wright,” I informed her, “as I expect you already know. But there’s nothing exciting about it. It’s all pretty dreadful. She came to see me weeks ago and told me that she was afraid she might be strangled and now she has been.”

“Really?”

I was feeling downright miserable about it all – the sight of Polly’s staring dead eyes, the fact that there must be some lunatic loose about the village and the guilt of wishing I’d done something when I had the chance. “Yes. The whole thing sounded unlikely to me.”

“What did she say?”

I told her what Polly had said about this being a murder mystery story and the nonsense about me being the narrator and all the rest of it.

She looked thoughtful. It suited her just as well as smiling, I noted. Not actually, of course. I didn’t have a pen handy and anyway, it would have been a pretty odd thing to do.

“Well,” she decided, “I’m in the right place – I’m going to carry on with Professor Smith’s interview.”

I smiled then. “In that case, I may as well walk along with you, Miss Smith. He’s decided that he does want to see me today.”

*

The professor was in a crotchety sort of mood this morning. I thought that was perfectly understandable, given what had happened to his young secretary. However, it turned out that Smith’s pity was all for himself.

“It’s very inconvenient,” he said, as Sarah sat herself down and I placed my bag on the small table and opened it up. “I shall have to find a new secretary now. Young people these days, never thinking of their elders and betters before they go out gallivanting and getting themselves murdered.”

I was thinking to myself that if Polly had killed the old boy it wouldn’t have been half so surprising. “I say,” I put in, “I hardly think that’s fair.”

Both of them ignored me.

“Can you think of anyone who would have had a reason to kill her?” Miss Smith asked (or Sarah Jane, as I’d learned half way up the hill towards Mill Cottage).

He narrowed his gaze and said, “I thought you were here to talk about my work, young lady – not scandal and tittle-tattle.”

“Of course,” she returned demurely. “But I thought you might have some idea – you knew her well, you’re clearly observant and I’d guess that you’re a good judge of character.” 

I was beginning to realise that she was a pretty determined sort of girl and an adept at getting her own way.

Professor Smith waved a hand dismissively. “Oh, it was probably one of those young fellows of hers – I’m afraid she was a flighty young thing.”

“Oh?”

He tapped his stick with impatience. “Now, where were we? I believe I’d reached the turning point in my work with the institute.” He glanced up at me. “What are you doing, hovering around like that?”

“You said your back was troubling you,” I reminded him. “You sent for me.”

He glared. “Nonsense. Really, I’m going to change practice if you keep up this sort of thing. There’s nothing wrong with my back and I don’t want you littering up my study with your medical whatnots.”

“I’ll be on my way, then,” I said, maintaining a cheerful tone as I replaced the thermometer I’d accidentally left out beside the bag. “Miss Smith.”

She nodded distractedly, her attention on Professor Smith. As yesterday, I was in the way, so I removed myself. This time there was no Polly to show me out of the door and give me a sympathetic grimace at the old man’s unreasonable behaviour. There never would be again.

I didn’t take his threat to change practices too seriously. It would be nice if he did, but the only other doctor around here is Dr Solon and he’s a little too eccentric for most people’s tastes, and, besides which, a lot of them insist there’s something foreign about him, although I don’t think it’s true. Miss Maren thinks he’s the devil, but that’s Miss Maren for you.

*

Inspector Mackenzie was waiting for me at the bottom of the hill, despite the drizzle. 

“Sullivan,” he greeted me. “Have you got a minute or two? I could use your help.”

“Of course,” I said.

He coughed. “Turns out that the girl’s fiancé, Mr Jackson, arrived yesterday evening and is putting up at the Bell and Boat. Maybe you could come and break the news to him? You’re used to that sort thing, I imagine.”

I nodded, although I didn’t like to remind him that I’d only been in practice a couple of years and you could hardly say that people had been dropping like flies since. And a good thing, too – as I said to Polly when she came to see me, that sort of thing doesn’t do a doctor any favours. However, I’d be better than Inspector Mackenzie. He’s said to be good at his job, but he’s not exactly tactful.

“Good,” he said, marching off ahead of me. “And then I shall arrest him!”

“What?”

“It’s always the husband or wife,” he explained, “or the boyfriend or what have you. Saves a lot of trouble if we get on and arrest him now.”

I paused, wondering if I could believe my ears. “Don’t you need proof, that sort of thing?”

“Oh, we’ll find it,” he barked. “The girl’s dead, Dr Sullivan. Isn’t that proof enough?”

*

I can’t say that I was happy about this arrangement, but I followed him along to the Bell & Boat. What made it worse was that, when we arrived, and the landlady fetched him for us, it turned out that he was a naval man.

Ben Jackson came across to meet us eagerly. “What’s this about? Has something happened to Polly? People keep saying things, but I didn’t want to believe it.”

I felt sorry for the poor chap. “I’m afraid it’s true, old thing. There’s no easy way to say this – she was found dead on the hillside last night.”

“Strangled,” put in the Inspector abruptly. “Nasty bit of work.”

He sat slowly on the chair in front of us, taking a while to let that sink in. “No,” he said eventually. “It can’t be. Who’d do that to Pol?”

I interrupted here because the Inspector seemed to be about to swoop in and follow that piece of bad news up with an accusation and arrest. “That’s a good point. Did she have any enemies, Mr Jackson?”

“Call me Ben,” he said and then shook his head. “No, not what you’d call enemies. I mean, there’s the odd Dalek and Cyberman, but you’d know right off if one of them had done her in.”

Inspector Mackenzie reached for his notebook again and coughed, pencil at the ready. “And what about you, Mr Jackson? Where were you between 11 and 1 o’clock last night?”

“Where d’you think?” he returned. “I was here, asleep in bed. I’d had a long journey and Pol said the professor had a load of work on, so she’d see me in the morning. Wasn’t much else to do.”

The police inspector scribbled something down on the pad. Sitting next to him, I couldn’t help but notice that it looked suspiciously like a grocery list. “And can anyone verify that, sir?”

Ben paused and looked back at Mackenzie in disbelief. Then he turned to me. “Is he saying I did it?”

“It’s his job to ask,” I said apologetically.

He leaned back in his chair and glared at both of us. “Well, I didn’t. And yeah, I was here, by myself. I told you, Pol said she couldn’t come down this evening. I suppose you could ask the landlady or the other guests if they saw me leave, but I can’t give you more than that. You ought to be out there, chasing the murderer, not pestering me.”

“And do you know anything about this other fellow of hers?” the Inspector continued relentlessly. I winced. People have been known to comment on my lack of tact sometimes, but compared to the detective I was nothing.

Ben stared at him. “What?”

“Several of the women around the village seem to think –”

He clenched his fists. “You’ve got no call to be sitting there, saying things like that about Polly. I don’t care what a load of old tabbies say. It’s not true.”

I had a try at peacemaking. “Some other fellow could have been bothering her, though. Maybe that’s who killed her.”

“Yeah, I suppose,” he said, “but I don’t know anything about it. Like I said, I only got in last night and she never said nothing about some bloke giving her trouble.”

I patted his shoulder as the inspector and I got up to leave and he propped his elbows on the table and rested his head in his hands, looking glum. 

“Let’s go, sir,” I said to the inspector in an undertone. “It’s clear he didn’t have anything to do with it.”

He looked at me and shook his head slowly. “It’s as well you’re not in the force, young Sullivan.”

*

My walk back along the road towards my practice coincided with Sarah’s return from Mill Cottage.

“Miss Smith,” I greeted her. “Did you have any luck with the professor?”

She smiled back at me. “Not about the murder, but I have got nearly all I need for my other article.”

“I’ve seen Inspector Mackenzie,” I returned. “He seems rather determined to arrest Polly’s fiance, Ben Jackson, and I don’t believe he’s the one behind this.”

She tapped my arm. “So you see, Dr Sullivan, it really is up to us to solve the mystery. We can’t have the wrong man getting arrested and hanged. Now, what shall we do next?”

“Well,” I said, “I need to pay a call on Miss Marple. Why don’t you come with me?”

“I hardly think that’ll help,” she said, giving me a puzzled look.

I tried to explain. “Oh, but Miss Marple’s a whizz when it comes to solving mysteries. You know, when Miss Smythe had lost a valuable brooch, she’d quite given it up and then Miss Marple worked out the whole thing – it was almost uncanny.”

I stopped, because she was giving me that vaguely pitying look again. “Well, you go visit your little old lady, Dr Sullivan – I think I’ll see if Ben Jackson will talk to me.”

“Be careful,” I said, not quite liking the idea. I was as sure as I could be that the chap wasn’t the murderer, but after all, who was I to set myself up against Mackenzie? Maybe I was wrong and he _was_ the killer. Miss Smith shouldn’t go putting herself in danger.

She laughed at my concern. “Dr Sullivan, I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself. I promise I won’t go down any dark alleyways with him. Now, how about we meet up afterwards and compare notes – what do you say to 3.30 at the tea shop?”

I was horrified. “The tea shop? Miss Smith, you don’t know what that place is like!”

She rewarded me with yet another amused look. “Yes, I do. I went there yesterday. They do very good cakes.”

“That woman who runs it,” I said, lowering my voice, “she’s enough to put anyone off their cream buns, and the waitresses are a pair of gorgons. I avoid the place like the plague.”

She sighed. “There really isn’t anywhere else, Dr Sullivan.”

“If you must,” I said, “but I warn you, if we meet up in there, it’ll be all over the village that we’re seeing each other. Probably be engaged by Saturday and married off before the month is out.”

Sarah shook her head and smiled at me. “In the first case, Dr Sullivan, I’ll protect you, and in the second, well, I promise to jilt you nicely!”

With that, she left me and headed off back to the Bell and Boat, still laughing to herself at my provincial peculiarities. I sighed.


	3. Miss Marple Is Concerned

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The investigation begins...

“Good afternoon, Miss Marple,” I greeted her. “How are we today?”

She gave me one of those sharp looks that made me feel about five years old. “As well as can be expected, Dr Sullivan, although I don’t yet think of myself in the plural.”

“Sorry,” I apologised. I ought to know by now not to do that. “Now, if you’ll put up with me a little bit longer, I’ll check that really is the case.”

She said, “Of course, doctor. Do you know what the inspector is doing about this dreadful business with the Wright girl?”

I set about taking her blood pressure. “I don’t know, to be honest.”

“I heard she was strangled.” She shook her head. “And so like Colonel Forster’s young niece.”

I finished. “Yes, she was. Who’s Colonel Forster when he’s at home?”

“Was it Forster or Foster?” she mused. “Now I come to think of it, I’m sure it was Foster. Yes, he had a young niece who disappeared and everyone always said that she’d run off with an unsuitable young man –”

I sighed. “You don’t think it was her fiancé as well, do you?”

“Her fiancé?” She glanced at me, as if surprised that I had even been listening. “Oh, no, not him, Dr Sullivan. And that was what they said, but Mrs Allison told me at the time that her Doris had –”

I sat down on the chair opposite. “Miss Marple, I could use your help. Inspector Mackenzie’s got a bee in his bonnet about it being Jackson, Polly’s fiancé, and I don’t think that can be right. Have you got any ideas?”

“Well, you see, that was what I was saying,” she persevered. “Doris Allison said that the niece hadn’t taken more than the oddest collection of clothes with her – rather as if some gentleman had snatched them from the closet in a hurry, not a girl planning on eloping. I always imagine that one would think about what one had to wear – not, of course, that I ever –”

“But Polly, Miss Marple!”

She patted my arm. “I hear that Miss Smith is asking questions.”

“Yes, she is,” I said, unable to help sounding rueful. “She won’t listen to me – thinks I’m a blockish, countrified sort of chap.”

Miss Marple smiled at me. “I do think you should keep an eye on her. People never like questions. Even if it isn’t murder, everyone has something to hide.”

“Not me,” I declared.

She cast a glance over me. “No, perhaps not _you_ , Dr Sullivan.”

“Of course, I’ll do my best to keep a look out,” I promised. “She might think it a cheek, though.”

Miss Marple gave a small, genteel sort of sigh. “Yes, I suppose she might – but you won’t be put off by that, will you? So like the schoolmaster’s daughter who would insist on finding why Jenkins the gardener wouldn’t let any of us children in the orchard. Of course, there was a hornet’s nest in there. She was smarting for days, but it didn’t change her in the slightest. She always had to know.”

“Yes,” I said, finding it best to humour old ladies in reminiscent flow. “But, look, you will put your jolly old mind to the murder, won’t you? The vicar told me how you found the offering thief and even Miss Maren at the post office –”

She nodded, as if taking a commission. “Oh, I shall do any small thing I can to help. It strikes me that there was something quite _wicked_ about it all.”

I paused in the act of picking up my bag and reaching for my coat. “Yes,” I said, “there was.”

*

I’d been walking up and down outside the tea shop for about ten minutes before Miss Smith turned up. She looked pink and out of breath, though it wasn’t far from the Bell and Boat to Ye Olde Tea Shoppe. (I said it was an awful sort of place). 

“What happened?” I asked.

She took my arm, her eyes bright with anger. “That dimwitted, pudding-headed police inspector!”

“Oh,” I said. “Well, yes, I suppose he is a bit tactless and old-fashioned. What did he do?”

Miss Smith led the way in through the door. “He arrested Ben Jackson.”

*

Priscilla, one of the pair of Gorgon waitresses, brought our order across and fixed me with a glare that by rights should certainly have turned me to stone. “Your tea.”

“Thanks,” I muttered.

“I’m glad you’re happy,” she snapped insincerely and flounced back off to the counter, where her employer glowered at us even more thunderously.

Miss Smith poured milk into her tea with energy. “At least, I did get a chance to speak to poor Ben before your stupid Inspector Mackenzie turned up and arrested him. He doesn’t seem to know anything useful, unfortunately.”

“Ben, is it now?” I asked, although I can’t think why. “And he’s not ‘my’ inspector.”

She gave me a frown. “Yes, well, I was about to try a few more questions, when Inspector Mackenzie and PC Plod turned up and arrested him for murdering Polly. I don’t believe he did it, but clearly the police around here are only after an easy answer!”

“Inspector Mackenzie thinks he did it,” I said, to be fair. “He says it’s always the husband or what-have-you. And I have to say that’s really not fair to Constable Benton. He can’t help what the inspector tells him to do.”

“Well, I don’t think either of them is qualified to catch a murderer!”

“Anyway, I have some news,” I said in an attempt to change the subject. “I went to see Miss Marple –”

Sarah bit back an amused smile. “Oh, yes. Your little old lady. What did she have to say?”

“You may mock,” I said loftily, “but Miss Marple has quite a brain. Anyhow, she says that her maid Martha is friends with Professor Smith’s maid, Kirsty, whose cousin is walking out with a young man from the garage in Namechester.”

She took a sip of tea. “Is there a point to this?”

“Well, according to Miss Rumford, who lives nearest to Professor Smith, it wasn’t only the cousin he came to see.”

She considered this. “So this young man is the other boyfriend that the Professor was hinting at. Couldn’t you have just said that?”

“I did,” I protested. “Miss Rumford told Miss Marple that when she was out walking her dog, she saw him with Polly. Martha was quite indignant about it as well and told Miss Marple she’d no business to be doing a thing like that when she was engaged to a nice young sailor.”

Sarah pulled out her notebook. “I don’t suppose you found out anything useful, like his name?”

“Yes,” I said. “I was just coming to that. It’s James McCrimmon.”


	4. Afternoon Tea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dr Sullivan and Miss Smith brave the village tea shop to make battle plans.

Daisy came across as we stayed there talking about the murder and removed our tea cups with a bad grace, clinking crockery together so hard it was a miracle she didn’t break anything.

“Going to be long, are we?” she asked pointedly.

I coughed. “No, not all – just off.”

“Actually,” said Sarah, a sudden and stubborn light in her eye as she caught at my arm to prevent me from getting up, “I wanted another cup of tea. And a macaroon. Will that be all right?”

Daisy’s lips thinned. “Of course. I shall be delighted to provide you with whatever you select from our excellent menu.”

“See?” I hissed. “There’s something not right about this place.”

She raised her eyebrows at me and leant forward. “I didn’t think you were a coward, Dr Sullivan.”

That stung. “I’m not,” I said. “I don’t see the point of –”

“I’m watching someone,” she informed me in an undertone, nodding behind me. “That man has been here for ages. And he was here yesterday, too.”

I moved to turn and look, but she kicked me under the table. That hurt as well. “Miss Smith!”

“Call me Sarah if we’re as good as engaged,” she said. “If you get up and fetch me the sugar bowl from that table, then you can tell me who he is.”

I was beginning to get annoyed. “I’m not going to do everything you tell me, Miss Smith. In fact, maybe I do have one or two patients to see to this afternoon.”

“You told me you didn’t,” she reminded me. “You’re lying, Dr Sullivan.”

I sighed. “Still.”

“If I say please very nicely and buy you another scone, will you get me the sugar bowl and tell me who that man is?” She beamed at me.

I should have known better, but I couldn’t help feeling mollified. “Since it might help with finding the murderer, I will. And of course I’m not letting you pay, old thing.”

I got up and, with an apology to Miss Smythe and Miss Rumford who were sitting at the nearest table, moved across to an empty table and reached out for the sugar bowl.

“Dr Sullivan,” said the proprietress, somehow there before me. She gave me a beautifully insincere smile. “If you wanted more sugar for your table, you should have asked. Priscilla or Daisy would have been only too happy to provide you with some. And – how odd – your bowl looks quite full to me. Is there some problem with it?”

“Fly landed on it,” I said, improvising as best as I could. “Miss Smith was a bit squeamish about it, so I thought I’d go find another. Terribly sorry, Mrs A.”

She passed the sugar lumps to me. “Next time, Dr Sullivan, ask nicely instead of stealing.”

“I say, that’s a bit steep,” I protested.

*

When I sat back down, Sarah looked at me expectantly. I stared back at her as I passed her the new sugar bowl.

“Well, who he is?”

“I didn’t get a chance to look, what with that old dragon landing on me like that. Accused me of trying to pinch the sugar!”

I realised I hadn’t redeemed myself in her eyes. So I rose, adjusted my coat on the chair and discreetly glanced over at the lone gentleman sitting in the corner.

“It’s Colonel Mace,” I said, once I’d finished. “You’re right. This isn’t the sort of place I’d expect to find him. Wonder what he’s doing here?”

Daisy brought us a fresh pot of tea and a macaroon. 

“Thank you,” I said.

Daisy glared at me again, but managed to force another horribly insincere smile. “I’m happy you’re glad.”

“Sarah,” I said, leaning forward. “Can we please get out of here?”

Sarah gave me a mischievous smile. “Not until I’ve finished this macaroon. I don’t know who the cook is, but he or she must be a genius.”

*

“So, shall I run you over to Namechester and pretend there’s a problem with my car?” I offered. “That should give us a good excuse to visit the garage and meet this McCrimmon fellow.”

Sarah turned in surprise. “You know, that’s not a bad idea.”

Clearly, it was no use my trying to impress her, was it? “We could go now, if you liked.”

“We should try to get to the bottom of this as soon as possible,” she agreed. “If you don’t mind, I just need to pop back to Professor Smith’s. He asked me to fetch this parcel for him, so I’d better take it up.

Wonderful, I thought. Now the professor could throw things at me again for turning up where I wasn’t wanted.

“You don’t have to come,” she said, obviously seeing something of my feelings on my face.

I smiled at her. “Oh, I shall. What if the old boy should turn out to be the villain of the piece?”

“If he was a little bit more agile, that mightn’t be a bad idea,” she said with a laugh. “He’d make rather a good murderer.”

I walked along the path with her. “I don’t think you can call a murderer good.”

“Don’t be pernickety, Dr Sullivan. You know exactly what I meant.”

*

“Dr Sullivan, at last!” said Professor Smith, on our arrival. “I’m delighted to see you, my boy. I’ve been having terrible trouble with my knee today. Perhaps you could take a look?”

I still had my bag from this morning, luckily. I’d drop it off later when we fetched the car. “Of course, Professor.”

“I got your parcel,” Sarah announced, placing it on the table beside her. “It feels heavy enough. What is it?”

He darted a bright glance in her direction. “You’re an inquisitive young lady, aren’t you? Books, my dear! What did you expect? Books – very interesting things, aren’t they, Dr Sullivan?”

“Eh?” I said, my mind more on his knee at the time.

He chuckled to himself. “Perhaps it was your uncle, Dr Sheppard, I was thinking of – always so fond of reading – and of writing everything down.”

“Was he?” I returned without much interest. The only book my uncle had left me other than medical texts had been a notebook that turned out to be blank, so I couldn’t say one way or the other.

“Talking of writing,” he said, with a sigh, “I have such problems with my fingers – arthritis, you know – perhaps Miss Smith would be kind enough to write out a letter for me? What with poor dear Polly gone –”

He actually looked sorry for once and frail with it. Sarah patted him on the shoulder and told him she’d be happy to write whatever he wanted. While I fished in my bag for the prescription pad, she took down a letter of outrage to a scientific journal that hadn’t dealt with his findings in a manner that met his approval.

“To the distinguished gentleman,” he began grandly, “I must reluctantly inform you that I am no longer prepared to take any more of your insults and slights against my articles. I have had quite enough and am not prepared to go on any longer submitting works to your journal. The editorial comment on my last article for you was written in a grossly inappropriate tone. This is the last straw. If I do not receive an immediate and full apology, our work together must cease as of this date.

Yours, John Smith.”

Sarah bit back a smile. “I’m sure that’ll tell them, Dr Smith.”

*

“Right, shall we be off to Namechester, then?”

Miss Smith gave me a brisk nod. “Lead on, Dr Sullivan.”

I walked alongside her back to my house. I had to pop in, drop off my bag and what have you. I’d hoped Mrs Hudson wouldn’t be there, but she was. Whenever I want her to be around to get something done, she’s off gossiping at the Post Office, but you can be certain that if I want some piece and quiet, she’ll have decided to start a mass clearance campaign.

“Dr Sullivan,” she greeted me in a tone that made me feel more like a truant schoolboy than the village GP. “Where have you been?”

I tried to smile nicely. “Here and there, Mrs Hudson. Um, this is Miss Sarah Jane Smith. She’s a journalist.”

“Pleased to meet you,” said Sarah, holding out her hand.

My housekeeper stared back at her, merely giving her a sniff and a nod in return. “My pleasure, I’m sure, Miss.” She glanced at me and signalled me over with little subtlety.

“Mrs Hudson, we are rather busy – we need to be off to Namechester before it’s a bit late –”

She put her hands on her hips, still holding a tea towel. “Dr Sullivan, nothing was said to me about you bringing girls home here. It’s not right and I can’t be working here if this sort of thing is going to go on.”

“I’m only dropping off my bag,” I said, beginning to feel annoyed. “Mrs Hudson, that’s an unreasonable thing to go suggesting. Sarah’s not that sort of girl and in any case, this is my house and it’s none of your business.”

She sniffed again. “You won’t say that when you have to try doing your own washing.”

“It’s all right,” said Sarah, joining us. She smiled seraphically at Mrs Hudson. “You needn’t worry – we’re engaged.”

*

“Oh, come on, Dr Sullivan,” she said in the car later. “You can’t sulk all the way to Namechester.”

I concentrated on the road with dignity. “I’m not sulking,” I informed her. “I’m not sure that I have anything to say to you if you think that was helpful.”

“No, I thought it was funny,” she said.

I glared at her. “Well, it jolly well wasn’t! Going to the tea shop was bad enough, but now you’ll have set the whole village off, gossiping about us. You might be able to scarper off back to London when you’ve finished here, but I’ve got a practice to keep up.”

Sarah only grabbed at the wheel, which I objected to, until I realised that we were on the wrong side of the road. “Watch where you’re going!”

“Then perhaps you’d better not talk to me until we get there,” I suggested. I mean, I wasn’t sulking, but it’s hardly fair of a girl to go putting a chap in this sort of position and then go thinking the whole thing is a joke.

She sighed. “Oh, all right. I’m sorry I told your housekeeper we were engaged, but really! What era is she stuck in?”

“An awful lot of these old biddies are positively Victorian,” I said. “Not much you can do, except to go along with them.”

Sarah stared out of the window. “She was the one who started it, being rude.”

“As I was trying to point out to her before you stepped in,” I returned, as we entered Namechester. Another ominous silence followed, until I coughed and asked, “You don’t happen to know where this garage is, do you?”


	5. James McCrimmon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sarah and Harry track down a suspect. It doesn't end well...

It turned out that there were only two garages in Namechester and one of them didn’t have a James McCrimmon working there, so Miss Smith and I set off for the other, after the helpful Welsh girl from the first place gave us directions. I can’t say the mood between us in the car was the best.

“I thought you knew where it was,” she said, her arms folded.

I coloured. “Well, I had a vague idea where both of them were, but nobody said which garage.”

“And you didn’t think to ask your adoring little old lady something useful like that?”

I pulled the car into said garage and brought her to a halt. “Sarah, that’s no way to talk about Miss Marple. Hallo!”

The garage owner came ambling across to us. He was a short, dark-haired man with glasses. “Something wrong, sir?”

“Oh, no,” I said and then caught myself, even as Sarah punched me in the arm. “I mean, there might be. Old thing’s been making a bit of racket lately. Thought I ought to get her checked out. Someone said this’d be the place to come.”

Sarah emerged from the car and I followed hastily. She smiled at the man and held out her hand. “I’m Sarah Jane Smith. Do you have a James McCrimmon working here, by any chance?”

“No,” he said and his smile vanished abruptly. I thought he muttered, “Not another one,” under his breath. Sarah’s eyes narrowed, and I winked at her. Not that I like being petty, but it’s nice to know that I’m not the only one who puts his foot in it from time to time.

I coughed. “Look, sorry to trouble you and all that, but I was rather hoping you’d take a look at the old girl.”

He returned his gaze to me and I saw bemusement on his face. “I’m sorry?”

“The car,” I said gently. “My friend told me you were a whizz at this sort of thing.”

He made a face. “Just as well someone is. And if she” – he indicated Sarah with a motion of his thumb that I thought insulting – “wants to have a word with McCrimmon, he’s over there, probably putting water in the oil and deflating tyres again.”

“I’m a journalist,” said Sarah, determined to make good her earlier error. She smiled at him. “I was told he might be able to help with an article I’m writing.”

He only directed a brief, uninterested glance at her before turning back to the car. “So what’s the problem, Dr Sullivan?”

“I’m not really sure,” I confessed with perfect honesty. “She’s always run so well until now.”

The garage owner folded his arms and pushed his glasses back into place. “Something a bit more specific would help, sir.”

“Well, I was thinking perhaps if you gave her a general once-over,” I said, not about to be put off. “You know, a service or what-have-you?”

He glowered back at me. “I’m not sure about a what-have-you, but I might be able to fit in a service – business has been quiet lately, worse luck. Probably that Scottish clown driving my customers away. Doesn’t know a carburettor from a handbrake.”

“Good one,” I said, laughing at his pun in the hope it would improve his mood.

He stared at me again.

“Driving your customers away. Very good,” I said. He still only looked at me blankly. “Never mind.”

He sniffed. “Well, it’ll be a couple of hours – could be longer if something needs doing. D’you want to leave it here and walk into town – or there’s the Crown opposite?”

*

In the end, Sarah and I took refuge in the pub and McCrimmon escaped his employer a few minutes later and came across to join us. He was a dark-haired young lad with a pleasant face who looked uncomfortable in his mechanic’s overalls.

“What did you want to see me about?” he asked, as we all sat round a circular table. He took a sip of the drink I’d paid for and seemed disappointed to discover it was only lemonade.

Sarah leant forward, her reporters pad and pen at the ready. “Polly Wright!”

McCrimmon spluttered into his glass.

“Aha,” said Sarah. “We thought you might know something.”

“Oh, I’ve never heard of her,” he muttered hastily. As lies went, it was the most unconvincing fib I’d ever heard.

I leant back in my chair. “That’s not what I was told.”

“It’s not what you think,” he said and then frowned slightly. “I mean, if I knew anybody called that, o’ course.”

Sarah eyed him thoughtfully. It was a shame she thought I was such a hopeless case, I mused, distracted by the picture she made, with sunlight from the window outlining her profile. I sighed.

“And I’ve never heard of Kit – who did you say?” McCrimmon was protesting when I remembered what I was supposed to be doing. This was a murder investigation, not a romance, even if Sarah did go round telling people we were engaged when she was annoyed with me.

Sarah looked at me. “Kirsty, wasn’t it? We heard you were walking out with her.”

“No,” I put in, eager to seem as if I had been giving them my full attention. “It’s Kirsty’s cousin McCrimmon’s been seeing.”

He looked from Sarah to me in bewilderment. “What is this about? Who’s Kirsty?”

“No,” I said. “Her cousin.”

Sarah glared at me for muddying the waters. “Listen, Mr McCrimmon –”

“Jamie,” he corrected her with a smile and a wink in her direction. I took an unaccountable dislike to him.

She smiled back. “Well, Jamie, Polly Wright has been murdered. I suggest you tell us anything you know that might help bring the killer to justice.”

“Murdered?” he echoed, his eyes widening. “Not P – I mean, who did you say again?”

I interrupted. “Come off it, McCrimmon, you obviously knew the girl. Why don’t you tell us? I imagine it won’t take Inspector Mackenzie too long to find out the same information and the sort of mood he’s in, he might just get on and arrest you.”

“Hey, I haven’t done anything wrong,” he protested, about to run.

Sarah put a hand on his arm. “I’m sure you haven’t, Jamie, but somebody killed the poor girl. If you can help us, don’t you think you ought?”

“Well, if you put it like that,” he conceded. “Only it’s not my secret to tell, that’s all. Miss Wright said she heard I was friendly with one of the maids up at the big house –”

“One of the maids?” queried Sarah, taking notes.

He blushed. “Well, two, then. But she wanted me to –”

“Two?” I said. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised, given the garage-owner’s remarks, but what sort of behaviour was that? It didn’t take into account Kirsty’s cousin, either. (Whoever she was when she was at home.)

He shrugged. “All right, three, maybe. But look, that’s got nothing to do with Polly – Miss Wright, I mean. She wanted to know all sorts of things about Lady Louisa and her husband. If you want a murderer, you should ask them up at the big house.”

“The Pollards?” I said. “Surely not?”

Sarah flashed me a dark glance and I wished I hadn’t said anything.

“Yes, that’s right, the posh folks – the Pollards,” said Jamie. “If they knew who Miss Wright – Polly – was, they’d have had reason to finish her off all right.”

Sarah leant further forward. “Why would they want to do that?”

“I don’t think I should tell you. You’re a writer, miss. If you put it one of those magazines, I might get murdered, too.”

“I won’t, honestly,” said Sarah. “I promise.”

McCrimmon looked from one to the other of us again, rather like a trapped animal and said, “I’ll tell Dr Sullivan. I’m sorry, missie, but I can’t trust you not to go writing things down in yon little book.” 

I smiled at Sarah, seeing her forcibly close her mouth and stifle her temper. “I see. Well, I shall take myself and my dangerous notebook outside.”

Once she’d gone, Jamie turned to me and winked. “You and her – are you –?”

“No,” I snapped. “Anyway, why don’t you tell me what this big secret is?”

Lines furrowed his forehead again. “This is a wee bit awkward. Will you come out the back with me a moment, Dr Sullivan?”

“Anything, as long as you’ll explain,” I said, following him along the narrow, wood-panelled passageway to the rear yard of the pub, where there would once have been the coaching house. “Now, what is it?”

His answer was not what I had anticipated.


	6. A Chapter of Accidents

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry's day keeps getting worse.

In my defence I have to say that I was taken completely by surprise. Otherwise I would have been more than capable of taking on McCrimmon. I’m not a boastful man, but I am reasonably handy with my fists. However, when a harmless-looking garage mechanic is – as you expect – about to confide a secret, you’re not as ready as you might be. Plus, I think he used some sort of stick that had been lying by the back door. I’m not very clear on the whole thing for obvious reasons.

At any rate, the next thing I knew, the landlord was shaking me and someone in the background was going on about sending for a doctor.

“I am a doctor,” I tried to say.

The landlord slapped me.

“I’m not sure that’s the correct procedure,” said the female voice from behind him in a tone of interested observation.

He said cheerfully, “Well, it’s working. He’s coming round.”

I reluctantly opened my eyes, having a feeling that I wasn’t going to like where I found myself. 

I was right. I was lying on the damp mud and gravel of the yard and McCrimmon was nowhere to be seen. The landlord – a giant of a fellow with wild curly hair and a terrifyingly wide smile – was kneeling over me, and I was going to have the devil of a headache. Possibly, I was in fact concussed and the landlord was an hallucination. He looked as though he ought not to be real.

“Hey there,” shouted the landlord, unnecessarily, “can you hear me?”

I winced. “Yes. I’m not deaf.”

“See?” he said to the woman behind him. “What did I say? Fellow’s right as rain. Now, what are you doing, lying around here? I know my lemonade’s potent stuff, but I’ve never seen it have that sort of effect before.”

I tried not to move too suddenly. “A mechanic knocked me over the head.”

“Ah,” said the landlord. “With a spanner, I expect. Did you say a mechanic or a rustic?”

“Or possibly the lead piping,” suggested the woman.

The landlord grinned again. “Maybe a candlestick?”

“Look,” I said, hoping for some sense out of them. “Did you see him go through the pub?”

He shook his head. So, McCrimmon must have hared off out the back gate, presumably.

“And what about Sarah?” I asked. “Miss Smith, I mean? Where is she?” 

It was beginning to occur to me that if McCrimmon was our murderer and not merely a man desperately trying to protect a secret that he might have gone after Sarah once he’d dealt with me. I swallowed, since the thought of finding Sarah as we’d found Polly – Well, I’d rather not have to think of it.

“There aren’t any Smiths here,” said the woman. She moved forward and I could see that she was a petite blonde with dark eyes. “Aside from us, of course. This is the Crown Inn, Namechester.”

I cautiously tried to sit up. “I know where I am, thank you.” Actually, that was reassuring. I knew where and who I was and what I had been doing, so I might have avoided the concussion. It was about as much as could be said for today.

It wasn’t encouraging news. Miss Smith, I knew by now, was not one to sit idly by and wonder what had happened to her suspect and accomplice. She’d have gone looking for one or both of us by now. I hoped she hadn’t started trailing McCrimmon.

“Come on,” said Mr Smith. (Sarah was right: there were an awful lot of Smiths around). “Let’s get you back inside.”

He helped me up with ease if not grace and deposited me back in the window seat I’d been occupying earlier, even as Sarah came racing through the front door, half-flinging herself at the bar.

“Hello,” said the landlord, giving her a wide smile. “You’re clearly desperate for a pint.”

Sarah stared at him for a moment and then turned aside to me, as Mrs Smith patted the back of my head with a cloth, presumably cleaning up a spot of blood.

“Dr Sullivan, what are you doing?”

I thought about that for a moment before replying. “It’s a bit of a long story.”

“Professor Plum in the conservatory,” said the landlord.

Mrs Smith moved away as Sarah reached me. “With the lead piping.”

“Where were you?” I asked.

Sarah was flushed with excitement. “Someone’s stolen your car!”

I have to say that as days went, this one was steadily getting worse.

*

Sarah was surprisingly sympathetic about the whole incident. While my ineptitude in letting McCrimmon whack me over the head and leg it had only confirmed her low opinion of me, she at least tried not to let it show too much, and even inspected the bump on my head with apparent concern.

The landlord fetched me a glass of ginger beer on the house. “Thought you needed something stronger than lemonade,” he explained and pushed it across the table. “Go on. It’ll do you good.”

“Thanks,” I said. I wanted to go home to bed, but I needed to find out what Sarah had been doing in the mean time – and how we were going to get back now that someone had run off with my motor.

Sarah took my arm. “Sorry about your car.”

“What happened?”

She bit her lip. “Well, the garage owner went off to fetch something or other. I was watching from across the road, as I had nothing better to do since McCrimmon had –”

“Decided I was the most gullible of the two of us,” I said for her. “Or he’s not as bad as we think and he didn’t want to bash a female over the head.”

She gave me a look. “You would say something like that. Anyhow, I was standing there watching, when a dark-haired, foreign looking man walked up. He stared about him a bit, then he opened the car door and started poking around inside. I tried not to let him see me watching, but I moved further forward.”

“Searching for something?” I echoed. I didn’t keep anything in my car, barring one or two essentials. Nothing a man would go to those sorts of lengths for, any rate. “That’s odd.”

She nodded. “I wondered if he was after your doctor’s bag.”

“I suppose that’s a theory,” I said, although I have to say that no shady-looking foreign types have ever tried to snatch my kit before.

Sarah took a deep breath. “Anyway, then he looked up and saw I was watching and he panicked. He got in, slammed the door behind him and sped off. There was a bicycle hanging around, so I threw myself on it and went after him.”

“I say,” I put in, “that wasn’t very sensible – you could have been hurt.”

Sarah glanced at me. “I’m not the one who’s got a lump the size of an ostrich egg on my head, am I?”

“No,” I admitted. “What happened?”

She coloured slightly then, as I noted with interest. “He must have seen me following – he swerved round and headed straight for me, but I managed to get out of the way, but he crashed right into the wall beside me.” She paused then. She added with a slight tremor, “It was all rather horrible after that.”

“I say, Sarah,” I said, ashamed of myself for moaning about my troubles. “He tried to kill you?”

She frowned. “Well, I think so. Or maybe he only wanted to force me off the road. I think your car did need seeing to – the brakes can’t have been much use.”

We both look at each other, distracted by the same conclusion.

“Jamie,” she said, wide-eyed. “Do you think –? Surely not?”

I put my hand to my head. “This is all getting a bit much for me. You mean that McCrimmon sabotaged the brakes, but then this other chap decided to steal the car and he got smashed up instead of us?”

“I don’t know,” said Sarah. “I mean, if it had been Jamie, the other mechanic would surely have come along and fixed it before you got it back, wouldn’t he?”

I thought about this. “Actually, if he hadn’t knocked me silly, I might have chased after – gone for the car.”

“Oh,” she said, paling. “I suppose we might have done.”

I sighed. “And my car?”

“Not good,” she said. “They towed it back to the garage and the man said he’ll do his best, but he didn’t sound confident.”

I looked at her. “What have we got ourselves into?”

“A good question,” she observed. “And I’ve got another – how are we going to get back to Nether St Yorick? I can’t take you on the bus, looking like that.”

I straightened myself. “I’m fine now, honestly.”

“Well,” she said, giving me a dubious look, “I suppose as long as you keep your hat on…”


	7. Inspector Mackenzie On the Trail

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The mystery deepens...

We did get back by bus, although it took nearly all evening, what with waiting for the first bus to arrive and finding it only went as far as Upper Roundswell, after which we had to wait for another, and by the time that bus finally trundled into Nether St Yorick, neither of us were up to anything more than heading off to our respective beds.

I returned to find Mrs Hudson still in my house. As far as I can gather, she had been waiting specifically to tell me that getting knocked over the head was the sort of thing I could expect if I started getting up to tricks with Modern Females. I have to confess I felt sorely tempted to knock _her_ over the head in return since a lecture was the last thing I wanted at that moment, and particularly not one so unflattering to a plucky girl like Miss Smith. (Can you imagine? Charging off after a car thief on a bicycle.)

Despite her low opinion of the police inspector (still lower than her opinion of me, I’m pleased to report), the next morning Sarah went to tell Mackenzie what had happened with McCrimmon and the car.

All of which inevitably earned me a visit from the Inspector. My head was still feeling a bit tender, so I wasn’t too pleased to find a loud and insensitive police officer on my doorstep.

“Sullivan,” Mackenzie barked, marching in over the threshold without waiting for an invite. “I needed to see you.”

I followed him into my sitting room. Luckily, Mrs Hudson didn’t hold any strong opinions about policemen (aside from a dislike of their Dirty Boots), so she brought us some tea and biscuits. She may be a bit of a tartar, but she makes a near perfect cup of tea, I have to say.

“Miss Smith explained about what happened to you yesterday,” he said. “I’ve got my men out looking for this McCrimmon fellow –”

I couldn’t help it. “Well, that will keep Constable Benton busy.”

“The chief up at Namechester has also lent a few men,” he said, without paying any heed to my inappropriate sense of humour. “Look, I’ve had to let Jackson go due to lack of evidence, so I’ll bang up this other chap as soon as I get my hands on him, but I’m a bit puzzled about some things.”

I nodded. “So am I.”

“You know who went off in your car and made a wreck of it and himself, don’t you?” he said.

I shook my head.

“Dr Solon,” he informed me. “What is this, some kind of rivalry over the practice?”

I stared at him. “Dr Solon stole my car and tried to kill Miss Smith?”

The Inspector chomped on another biscuit. “Mmph.”

“But that’s – that’s ridiculous,” I said. “And what did he want? Sarah said he seemed to be looking for something in the car. That makes no sense.”

He choked on a biscuit and coughed crumbs over the carpet. “It’s beyond me. I’ll just lock up this McCrimmon fellow and make an end to the whole affair.”

“But I don’t think it was McCrimmon,” I said. “I think he was scared of something – or someone.”

The inspector got to his feet. “That’s very charitable of you, Dr Sullivan. I never feel very sympathetic when someone’s knocked me over the head, but I suppose that’s why you’re a doctor and I’m an officer of the Law.”

“I suppose so,” I agreed.

He turned as he reached the door. “Still, at least it’s cleared up something.”

“Oh? What was that?”

He put his hat back on. “Well, that solved the mystery of who pinched Miss Fay’s bicycle. Got Benton to rescue it from the crime scene and take it back to her. Nice to be able to make someone happy for a change.”

*

No sooner had he gone, then there was another knock at the door and I opened it to find Sarah standing there with a bedraggled bunch of wild flowers in her hand.

“I brought these for you,” she announced. She glanced at the wilting blooms. “Well, they looked nice when I picked them and I couldn’t get any grapes.”

I took them from her with a grin. “They are past their best,” I agreed. “Still, it’s the thought that counts. And I’m not an invalid, Miss Smith.”

“Sarah,” she reminded me. “Can I come in or is your housekeeper here?”

I moved forward and pulled the door to behind me. “She is. What did you want?”

“Firstly to make sure you were all right,” she said. “And I wanted to know – are you prepared to go on with this detective business?”

I said, “I think we have to. Someone’s obviously got it in for us as well now. And Mackenzie thinks McCrimmon’s his villain and I’m not so sure. I think he’s trying to hide something. He didn’t kill me yesterday, after all.”

Sarah frowned. “I don’t think I’d be so keen to trust him. Still, I don’t see him strangling Polly Wright. And we ought to see whether or not he was telling the truth about the Pollards.”

“I could call on them,” I offered, seeing where this was headed. “Miss Pollard gave me an invite the other day – I’ll say I’ve mislaid it and –”

She bit back laughter. “I can’t imagine anyone believing that of you.”

“When do you want to go?” I asked. “After all, we’d better stick together so nobody has a chance to kill either of us again.”

Sarah paused. “Well, I have one or two last things to ask Professor Smith, so I shall call on him and come back – shall we say 2 o’clock?”

“Of course,” I said.

*

When Miss Smith returned later, she seemed on edge – she refused to meet my gaze and was much quieter than she had been on the previous occasions we’d tried investigating together. I thought perhaps she was more shaken by yesterday’s events than she chose to admit and didn’t blame her. Other than a brief query, I didn’t press her on the subject.

We walked down the footpath towards the big house.

I wasn’t thinking about the investigation as much as I should have been. I was wondering how to take the thing with the flowers earlier and whether I might have a chance with her if I asked her out to dinner or if she’d turn and laugh at me. I decided that after we’d finished at the Pollards’ I’d take the risk.

After yesterday, I reasoned, I should be able to face anything.

As we were walking up the drive, gravel crunching under out feet, we met Reverend Magister on his way out.

“Afternoon, Sullivan,” he said. “And is this the charming journalist I’ve been hearing so much about? Miss Smith?”

She smiled at him. “That’s me.”

“A pleasure,” he said, taking her hand and kissing it. Somehow he could get away with things like that. If I’d tried it, she’d probably have boxed my ears. “Anyhow, Mrs Magister is expecting me back and it doesn’t do to keep her waiting. I’m sure I shall see you again.”

I moved nearer to Sarah as he passed on, and whispered, “He’s a funny sort of chap.”

“What do you mean?” she asked and there was a chilly edge to her tone that startled me.

I shrugged. “Well, he’s as polite as anything, but I’m sure he doesn’t like me.”

“And that makes him odd, does it?” she returned at once. “How vain of you, Dr Sullivan.”

I paused, hurt. “I didn’t mean it like that. I don’t know why – and he’s supposed to be the vicar. You know, peace and goodwill and all that.”

“Maybe he’s really the villain?” she suggested, a spark of humour in her eyes.

I felt relieved that she seemed to have returned to her usual self, but I couldn’t swallow that. “Oh, no, Sarah – he’s the vicar!”

She gave me a puzzled look that I only understood much later.


	8. Miss Smith Comes to a Conclusion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dr Sullivan discovers that if yesterday was bad, today is even worse...

The man of the house was absent again, so we were ushered in and told that Lady Louisa would be down to see us shortly.

“Very nice,” said Sarah, instantly starting to search the room. She opened a drawer.

I was shocked. “You can’t do that!”

“Yes, I can,” she said and gave me another of those odd looks. “I suppose it is a bit pointless, though. I wouldn’t know if I did find anything, since we have no idea what we’re looking for.”

I paced about the room. “You still shouldn’t poke around in people’s cupboards, Sarah.”

“Then what would you do, Harry?” she shot back. I should have been pleased that she had used my name for once, but the tone of her voice was not one to inspire hope.

I frowned at her. “Well, I wouldn’t nose in other people’s private business, old girl.”

“Except in the course of your duty,” she returned. “Like now.”

I reflected on that. “I suppose, if you look at it like that, we are being a pair of busybodies. Still, we could be close to finding out who murdered poor Polly and why. I think that’s important.”

She looked as though she’d like to hit me and I wondered what on earth I’d said this time. I supposed she didn’t take kindly to me lecturing her about curiosity. 

*

Lady Pollard entered the room. I was startled to see how unwell she had become since my visit a few days ago. I was hard put not to say anything and made a mental note to try and persuade her to come for a check-up in the near future.

“Miss Smith, I presume,” Lady Pollard said. “And Dr Sullivan. What can I do for you?”

Sarah smiled at her. “Thank you for agreeing to see us, Lady Louisa. We’re trying to find out what we can about the murder of Polly Wright and we think you might be able to help.”

She flinched and looked from me to Sarah. “I beg your pardon?”

“At least,” said Sarah, “that’s why I’m here, but Dr Sullivan needs to have a quick word with your daughter if that’s all right?”

I could hardly protest, but she was clearly shunting me out of the way – not sensible when McCrimmon seemed to think that one of the Pollards could be a murderer. Then I reflected that it was unlikely to be Lady Louisa herself and even so, she could hardly murder Sarah and hope to get away with it, not in her own house in broad daylight with me likely to pop back into the room at any moment.

*

“What did you want, Dr Sullivan?” asked Charley, when I found her out in the garden. She was her usual cheerful self, which was a relief after Sarah’s unaccountable mood.

I had to think about that for a moment. I could hardly recall what my excuse was supposed to be this time. “I’m not sure.”

“You are funny,” she told me. “Shall I try and guess? Does it have anything to do with chicken pox?”

I coloured. “No. Not this time. You were kind enough to give me an invitation – and I mislaid it. I thought perhaps you could remind me of the time and so on. And if it isn’t too much of a cheek, would it be possible to bring Miss Smith?”

“Oh, yes, do,” she said instantly. “Of course. It’ll be splendid to meet her. I’d love to have a job like that, but of course Mother and Father are so boringly traditional about what a Young Lady should do. One day I’ll cut my hair, dress up as a boy and run away.”

“I don’t see the need to dress as a boy,” I said.

She thought about it. “Maybe not, but I thought it would throw everyone off the scent. They’d all be looking for a girl and I’d be a boy.”

“And, of course, you shouldn’t run away,” I added hastily, remembering my position. “Your parents would worry.”

Charley smiled back at me. “No. But I would like to have adventures, not stay in Nether St Yorick all my life. Mother always wraps me up in cotton wool – sometimes I think I might just suffocate.”

“Oh, I’m sure you’ll find something to do. What would you choose?”

“I’d like to go off exploring places. Sometimes I dream that an explorer comes into the village and I go off with him as his apprentice.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good plan,” I said. “Do explorers have apprentices?”

“Yes, it is,” she declared. “The only trouble is, it’s not going to actually happen, is it?”

Mrs Hudson would have things to say about Modern Females again. Sometimes I was almost tempted to agree.

I wondered about going back to join Polly and Lady Louisa, but it struck me that Charley might be a more useful source of information. I couldn’t imagine even Sarah getting very far with her mother.

“There is something else,” I told her, lowering my tone. “You said you wanted adventures, didn’t you? Well, Sarah and I seem to be slap bang in the middle of one.”

She turned, a spark in her dark eyes. “Really?”

“Yes,” I said. “Yesterday, someone stole my car and tried to kill Miss Smith and somebody else bashed me over the head.”

She sat on the edge of the patio, her feet on the lawn and patted the paving stones, an invitation to me to join her. I did so. “Golly, how exciting. Is it to do with the murder?”

“Yes,” I said. “And the fellow who hit me said that it might have something to do with someone here.”

Charley thought about that. “Gosh!”

“I don’t know if I believe him,” I told her. “But we thought we’d better find out what he meant by that. He seemed to think there was a connection between Polly and this house.”

She rested her head in her hands. “Who was this person?”

“I think he was seeing one of the maids,” I explained. “Or two.”

Charley laughed. “Oh, Jamie from the garage!” Then she sobered abruptly and looked at me. “Did he really hit you over the head? I thought he seemed ever so nice.”

“Yes,” I said. “He said that Polly wanted him to find out something or – I’m not really sure about it.”

She sighed. “Oh, dear.”

“Oh, dear?”

Charley chewed her lip. “Well, I shouldn’t really tell you. You see, Mother doesn’t think I know and I don’t know if Father _does_ know. I only found out when I heard Mother talking to someone years ago, when she thought I was asleep. And then I played detective and found some old papers –”

“What are you talking about? How could this have anything to do with Polly Wright?”

She whispered, “You must swear on your life not to tell anyone.”

“What if I have to stop Inspector Mackenzie from arresting some other innocent person? I don’t know if I can promise, old thing.”

Charley stared ahead. “But Mother wouldn’t murder anyone and I’m almost sure Father doesn’t know, so it can’t be us. If you can’t promise, you’ll just have to trust me.”

“So there is some connection between Polly and this house?”

She got to her feet. “I didn’t say so and I shall deny it if you try to tell anyone else. So there!”

*

I found Sarah again, as she was on the point of saying farewell, and accompanied her out of the house.

“Did you have any luck?”

She shook her head. “Lady Louisa told me she was terribly sorry to hear about the poor girl who had been murdered, but she could not be any further help. Then she lectured me for a few minutes about girls who went out to work instead of staying home and offered me a drink. I refused and then there was an awkward silence. I tried asking some questions about the rest of the family, but I got polite nothings in response and I felt I had to go.”

“I spoke to Charley,” I said, “and there is something, but she says it can’t be the motive for the murder and she wouldn’t tell me anything more, because I said I might have to tell the inspector.”

Sarah gave me an impatient look. “What did you have to bring the inspector into things for?”

“I thought it was only fair.”

She rounded on me and seemed about to give me the benefit of her temper and then she bit her lip, turned back and marched on ahead of me out of the drive.

“Miss Smith, are you all right?” I asked, running to catch up with her.

She nodded.

“Then what is it?”

She said, “I’m only frustrated that we can’t find anything more. We’re so close!”

*

When we got back to my house, it was to find Inspector Mackenzie in the drawing room with a cup of tea and a toasted tea cake.

“Inspector,” I said, raising my eyebrows at the sight. “Twice in one day – what an unexpected pleasure.”

He choked on the tea cake. Sarah thumped him on the back. “Thank you, Miss,” he said at last, still red in the face. “Thought you’d like to know that I’ve had to release Jackson due to lack of evidence.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I’m sure you’ve done the right thing, Inspector. There’s something complicated here and I don’t think Ben Jackson has any part in it.”

Sarah said, “Inspector, could I have a word alone?”

“Alone?” I said, taken aback.

She glanced out of the window. “Yes. Really, Dr Sullivan, someone should get you a dictionary if you have difficulties with perfectly simple words.”

“All right,” I said. “I’ll take myself out of my own drawing room and keep out of your way. I’ve got a few things to get on with.”

*

Eventually, the Inspector did come and call me back in. I was already feeling put out at their exclusion of me from the conversation, so when I saw that they had my bag on the table, various objects spilling out of it, I was annoyed. “I’ve already told you once today that it’s not polite to go rummaging through a fellow’s things!”

Inspector Mackenzie coughed and laid down that old black notebook of my uncle’s. “Perhaps you could explain that, Dr Sullivan?”

“That?” I said and picked it up. It was small – the sort of book that might be used for addresses, except, as I’d said, this one was empty. “My uncle left me some bits and bobs that he thought I might find useful. I don’t know why that was in there – thought it might be a list of patients or something, but when I finally got round to looking at it, I found it was empty.”

The inspector waited. “Open it up.”

I shrugged and obliged. Sarah was standing on the opposite side of the room with her arms folded and I saw that Constable Benton had also turned up since I’d left. I suppose I should have known something was up, but I couldn’t think what. However, as I opened up the notebook in front of them, my bewilderment grew. There were entries in it. “I say,” I spluttered, “this can’t be the same book.”

“I recognise your uncle’s handwriting – don’t you?”

I stared down at it. He was right: everything was written in his neat hand – too neat for a doctor, everyone always said – and the black ink he preferred. “Yes, I do. What is this about?”

“You’ve been continuing his practice in more ways than one, haven’t you?”

I shook my head. “I don’t follow you.”

“He was blackmailing a number of his patients,” said the inspector bluntly. “Look at the sort of thing he’s written in here – all his little ‘discoveries’ carefully recorded. And we know you’ve had this book for a while – several people will testify to seeing it in your possession. And if you knew what was in it, which you must have done, then why you didn’t hand it over to me or just destroy the thing?”

I swallowed. “Look, this is all nonsense. I don’t know where this came from, but I’ve never seen it before. My book was blank. And nobody could think I’d been going around blackmailing people.”

“A likely story,” said the inspector. “Dr Sullivan, I’m arresting you for the murder of Polly Wright. Anything you say may be taken down in evidence and used against you and all that.”

“But – but – but –”

He nodded to the constable. 

“Sorry about this, Dr Sullivan,” said Benton, cuffing me. “You’ll come quietly, won’t you?”

This had to be a nightmare. “Look,” I said, “you’re making a terrible mistake. I’ve never seen these notes before. Either it’s a forgery or someone substituted the books and back again at some point.”

“That’s a bit unlikely, don’t you think?” said Mackenzie.

It was, I had to admit. “Well, it might be, but it’s the truth.”

“Stop lying.”

We all turned to look at Sarah. It was the first thing she’d said since I’d come back into the room.

“You’ve been found out, so stop trying to come up with unbelievable stories,” she said, an angry light in her eyes. “You could at least have the decency to confess.”

It was all so topsy-turvy, I was almost flattered that she thought I was the sort of clever fellow who’d try and brazen it out to the end. Of course, she also thought I was a poisonous underhand blackmailer who’d murdered poor Polly.

“Look, inspector,” I said. “I’ll come along with you – I don’t have much choice, do I? – but you’ll soon find that the people in that book will tell you that I haven’t been blackmailing any of them.”

Sarah sat down and glared at me. “Well, Lady Louisa seemed to think you had!”

I stared at her, robbed of the power of speech. I began to wonder if everyone else had gone mad or maybe I had. Maybe I was some sort of Jekyll and Hyde character and went round blackmailing and murdering people without noticing.

“It stopped once your uncle left – and then someone started up again once you’d turned up. What a coincidence,” continued Sarah.

This was staggering. If people thought I was a blackmailer, I was surprised someone hadn’t gone and murdered me instead of Polly. Still, if I started complaining about not having been killed, it wouldn't help matters.

“Come on,” said the Inspector. “We’d better take you off to the station, Dr Sullivan.”

I’d thought yesterday was a rotten day, but clearly I hadn’t known what I was talking about. This one was developing the potential to be the worst day of my whole life. It probably would be, because if someone didn’t stop the inspector, I wouldn’t have an awful lot of life left.


	9. Dr Sullivan Has Visitors

I was sitting glumly in my cell, wondering what I could do to convince everyone that I wasn’t the murderer while also trying to put two and two together and work out who was behind it all and getting nowhere. I sighed.

Constable Benton arrived at the door and coughed by way of announcement. “You’ve got a visitor.”

To my surprise, it was the vicar.

I sat opposite him at the table and hoped that he had something helpful to offer, or at least that he was going to assure me that he at least believed my innocence. As it turned out, he’d come to give me a chance to confess my sins.

“I don’t want to be rude, reverend,” I said, “but I don’t have any terrible sins to confess. I didn’t kill Polly and no matter what everyone thinks, I haven’t been going round blackmailing people. I don’t know how this happened.”

He paused and turned back to face me. “You claim you didn’t blackmail anyone? Now that’s interesting, Dr Sullivan. Very interesting.”

“I can’t believe everyone thought I had,” I said. I was feeling hurt about that, more than anything. Well, aside from Sarah’s current opinion of me.

Magister frowned. “But can I trust you?”

“Yes,” I said. “And if not, you might as well go away and give me up as a lost cause.”

He smiled faintly. “I don’t think I will do that, Dr Sullivan. I shall have to go home and think about this.”

*

“Well,” said Constable Benton, who sounded much too cheerful, “you seem to be the most popular person we’ve had in here for a while, Dr Sullivan. You’ve got more visitors. The Inspector was going to send them away again, but it was a bit of a long haul for the old lady, so we thought we’d better let them in.”

I blinked. “Old lady?” _Not_ Sarah come to tell me that she’d realised she’d made a stupid mistake and that I wasn’t a murderer, then.

Constable Benton led me back through to the small room with the wooden table with uneven legs and then stationed himself at the door as I faced the unlikely duo of Miss Marple and Ben Jackson.

*

“So when I heard that they had arrested you, I had to come,” Miss Marple told me. “So foolish, but then the inspector’s father was exactly the same, charging off as soon as he had an idea – so irritating in a grocer, I always felt.”

Ben leant forward. “He’s a prize chump. I wouldn’t trust him to find out what happened to a stolen bicycle, let alone who murdered poor Polly.”

“Thank you,” I said. 

Miss Marple continued. “So when I ran into Mr Jackson in the Post Office, he was kind enough to offer to escort me into Namechester to tell you.”

“Tell me?”

She smiled at me. “Well, nothing particular yet, Dr Sullivan, but I will not allow him to get away with this. Of course with Mr Jackson, one couldn’t be sure, even if it _did_ seem unlikely, but when I heard that you had been arrested, I knew at once he had made a mistake.”

It was reassuring to find that somebody thought so.

“Clearly,” said Miss Marple, “we are dealing with a very clever mind – a diabolically clever mind.”

I put my head in my hands, as I worked out the implications of that statement. “You mean, not a dim-witted fellow like me, I suppose. But what can you do, Miss Marple? I even told the Inspector that I knew Polly was going to be killed – and then there’s that book. I can’t work it out at all.”

“Tell me,” said Miss Marple, and then listened attentively as I brought her up to date. “Hmm,” she said when I’d finished, “that _is_ revealing. Dr Sullivan, you don’t recall the book ever being missing or moved or –?”

“I never paid it much account to it,” I said. “I’m sorry. What are we going to do?”

Miss Marple said, “Well, Mr Jackson has offered to go and look for that missing Scottish boy. In the meantime, I shall do my best to find someone who can prove you’re not the murderer. After all, somebody would have seen something if you’d walked up and down the High Street in the middle of the night. Much more likely to be someone out of the way, like the Pollards or the vicar, or Miss Rumford, or the Professor up at Mill Cottage.”

“Thank you,” I said. 

She nodded. “Yes. We can’t have you locked up in here. That won’t do at all. And, really, somebody has to keep an eye on that Smith girl.”

“I think she can look after herself,” I said. I couldn’t really blame Sarah. I suppose she must have seen that book at some point, or it was Lady Louisa who had shared her suspicions, but I did wish she hadn’t jumped to the worst possible conclusion quite so quickly.

Miss Marple got to her feet. “Oh, in the normal way of things, I’m sure she can. But something is terribly wrong here.”

“Too right,” agreed Ben.

The Constable opened the door for her and she thanked him with a flutter and they both left me behind, my hopes pinned on Mackenzie’s other chief suspect and a little, fluffy old lady who didn’t seem to question the notion that she was a match for a diabolical murderer.

*

“Heard the news?” asked Benton, bringing me breakfast the next day.

I sat up stiffly. I wondered who he expected to have been telling me the news. Messenger pigeons? Honestly, and people didn’t rate _my_ intelligence highly. “No, Constable. Funnily enough, I haven’t.”

“Colonel Mace,” he said. “He’s been shot – or he shot himself. We’re not sure which at present.”

I got to my feet instantly. “Another murder? When did it happen?”

“Last night, apparently,” he said. “Looks like suicide, though, sir. I wouldn’t get too excited.”

I glared at him. “What sort of ghoul do you take me for? Why should I get excited about poor old Mace getting killed?”

“Well,” said Benton hesitantly, “some people might have thought that it sort of proves your innocence, what with you being locked away in here at the time.”

I took this in. He had a point. “Oh.” 

After he left, I sighed and sat back down. None of this made any sense to me. Why should someone kill Polly and then Colonel Mace (if it wasn’t suicide)? How had that book suddenly appeared in my belongings? What secret were the Pollards hiding and what did it have to do with Polly? How could McCrimmon know anything about it and where had he run off to? Why, if he wasn’t the killer?

*

Later, I had another visit from the vicar. I wasn’t too pleased to see him, to be honest, because it’s depressing to be offered a chance to confess when one hasn’t done anything sinful and we’d been through all that yesterday.

Magister seated himself opposite me. “Dr Sullivan, I’ve been thinking over what you told me. Now, you claim that you know nothing of what was written in that book?”

“No idea,” I said. 

He coughed lightly, “So I thought. I took the liberty of asking Inspector Mackenzie if we could quiz you on its contents.”

I thought about that. “And when I don’t know any of it – wait, that won’t work. You’ve only got my word for it and no one seems to stake much on that.”

He smiled lightly, “Well, this is where I come in.”

“Yes,” said the Inspector, entering and letting the door crash behind him. He whipped out his notebook. “It’s all very irregular, but this case is beginning to drive me up the wall.”

I said, “Then perhaps we should send for a proper detective from Scotland Yard?”

“I don’t think a suspect has any call to be making derogatory comments about the local constabulary.” Inspector Mackenzie glared at me and then pulled out the spare chair, scraping it over the stone floor. “Now, are you going to get on with it, Magister?”

I became apprehensive at this point. “Get on with what?”

*

“I’m sorry,” I said about half an hour later. 

The vicar frowned at the Inspector, who was snoring again. “Perhaps if we swapped the Inspector for one of his men? He seems to be the problem, not you.”

“I’d rather we didn’t,” I said. “Miss Marple promises me she’ll get me out of here and I’m having a bad enough few days without getting hypnotised. I’d have thought that was a bit of an strange hobby for a vicar, anyway.”

Magister said, “Which again proves that you haven’t read that dratted book and the Inspector has. And look, it hasn’t done him any harm. Wake up, Mackenzie!”

The Inspector started and blinked. “Eh? What? Why can’t you get on with it, vicar?”

“I’m trying,” said Rev. Magister, “but your snoring keeps ruining any influence I may have. I think we’ll have to give up on this one.”

*

“So,” said Mackenzie, after he had gone, still clearly taken with the idea of solving things by a bit of straight-talking. “How did you arrange to blackmail your victims?”

“I didn’t,” I said.

He read his notes. “You didn’t tell Lady Louisa to leave notes in the hollow oak tree?”

“Hollow oak tree? Is there really a hollow oak tree round here?”

Mackenzie persevered. “And what about the vicar?”

“I don’t know.”

He tried again. “Colonel Mace, now. He seems to have committed suicide once he knew the book was in police hands, so he’d have been desperate to keep you quiet.”

“I hardly know him,” I said. Then I frowned, as something slowly occurred to me. “But Colonel Mace couldn’t have been in that book – he didn’t arrive here until recently.”

He said, “Well, he is.”

“Not Lethbridge-Stewart?”

Inspector Mackenzie licked his pencil. “Are you making insinuations against the Brigadier?”

“No!”

He sighed. “Dr Sullivan, I wish you’d try and be helpful.”

“Look,” I said, “read Colonel Mace’s entry. I didn’t write it and my uncle couldn’t have done. If it’s in there, it must have been added by the real blackmailer.”

He stared back at me for a long while and then seemed to see the sense in my suggestion and left me to myself for a while.

*

“All right,” he said, when he returned. “I’ve sent Benton off to fetch me your diary or your laundry list or something, so that I can compare the two, but it’s a small, scribbled note – probably impossible to tell.”

I leant forward. “You could get in a handwriting expert. Or have you tested the book for fingerprints? There should only be mine and my uncle’s, shouldn’t there?”

“Shall I tell you how to treat the measles?” he countered. “For your information, Dr Sullivan, we don’t have handy experts on this, that and the other sitting around in Namechester and there’s far too many fingerprints on the thing for it to be any use – mine, yours, Benton’s, Miss Smith’s. No use at all.”

I sighed and hoped that the handwriting thing might provide the answer.

*

“Fascinating!” said the long-haired, sky blue-eyed stranger now sitting at the table, pouring over that troublesome notebook and my diary.

The Inspector looked shame-faced. “I remembered about Dr Smith – does palaeography or what have you. He’s agreed to take a look at your books for us.”

“I think that’s old handwriting or Latin or something,” I protested and then gave up. The fellow seemed to be having a whale of a time reading my diary.

He smiled at me. “Dr Sullivan, the inspector asked my opinion as to whether the writer of this” – as he held up my diary – “could also have written this.” He motioned at the notorious notebook. “I’ve looked at both under a magnifying glass. Now, I would say that the diary was written by a right handed person and this” – with a wave at the notebook –“by a left-handed chap. You’re not ambidextrous, are you?”

“No,” I said.

Mackenzie measured out the room in heavy paces. “So, you’re telling me that young Sullivan here couldn’t have written that entry and therefore someone else _did_ have their hands on that book?”

“That would be the idea,” he agreed. Then he looked from one of us to the other. “Oh. You didn’t actually believe me, did you?”

Mackenzie arrested him on the spot for wasting police time and being an accomplice after the fact.

*

“I really must learn to control my sense of humour,” Dr Smith sighed, sitting next to me in the cell.

I folded my arms. “Yes, I jolly well think you should. What did you do that for?”

“I didn’t think you could be serious,” he explained. “Of course, if you look at it under the magnifying glass, whoever wrote that entry was careful, but you can see he doesn’t join up his letters in quite the same way when you study the ‘m’s, but I doubt it’s the sort of evidence that would hold up in court.”

I stared at him. “Dr Smith –”

“Call me John.”

“Well, John, couldn’t you have told that to the Inspector instead of that nonsense about left-handed writers?”

“You think that would have been more helpful?” He considered it. “Perhaps you’re right. You were both there, waiting for me to come up with some marvellous answer and I felt obliged. Joining an ‘m’ from the top or the bottom really isn’t quite the same, is it?”

I got up and then knocked on the door repeatedly. “Dr Smith, if it gets me out of here, I really don’t care.”

“Oh. I was thinking how pleasant this all is,” he returned. “Compared to some of the cells I’ve been in, this one has a bed, food and good company – top notch!”

I decided he must be loopy. All the more reason to get out if I could. “That’s all very well, sir, but I’d like to get back to Nether St Yorick. And anyway, how many cells have you been in?”

“Well,” he said, “that’s the thing about old documents.”

“Yes?”

He gave me a sorrowful look. “They’re always being kept somewhere in the dark, nobody reading them. I always feel that someone should take them home and make use of them for a little while, give them a little care and attention. Half the time, nobody notices if they’re gone.”

“I – what?”

He smiled. “Of course, the other half of the time, I get to see the inside of a lot of police cells – I’m thinking of writing a book about it. It’s a very neglected topic, you know. Such a lot of fuss over nothing, when I always give everything back. I’ve done some perfectly good restoration work as well, but does anyone ever say thank you?”

“I think,” I said carefully, because, after all, I was locked in with him, “that’s called stealing, Dr Smith.”

He leant back against the wall and gave me a disarmingly dazzling smile. “No, no, no. If it was _stealing_ , I wouldn’t give it back afterwards, now would I?”

I knocked on the door again, but with less energy. If Inspector Mackenzie learned about this, he wouldn’t believe Dr Smith’s claims. (If he really was a doctor of any sort, come to that. I was beginning to have my doubts.) “If you want to borrow something, you should ask first.”

“Yes, but they say no,” he said. “I was always told to share things nicely.”

I looked back at him.

“And I don’t _keep_ them,” he added, beginning to sound defensive. “Well, not after that incident with the 1666 volume of Pepys’ diary.”

*

The inspector listened to Dr Smith’s claim about the writing and then blew out his moustache. “And is it a joke this time, sir?”

“No. Of course not.”

He glowered at him. “Well, that’s funny, because it sounds exactly like the other time when it _was_. I don’t know how I’m supposed to do my job, what with criminals that won’t confess when they’ve been caught and experts who seem to think jokes and facts are the same things.”

*

The next visitor was Sarah. She entered the room armed with a set expression on her face, and a notebook and pen in her hand.

“Inspector Mackenzie says you’re still claiming you didn’t do any of it,” she began, without giving me any opportunity to speak. “Perhaps you’ll tell me?”

I said, “I’m sorry, old girl, but the inconvenient thing is that I didn’t blackmail anyone and I didn’t murder Polly. If you’d like to speak to someone who can make up stories, I’ve got a cell mate you’d get along with famously.”

“Look,” she said, leaning forward, “if you were blackmailing people, but you didn’t murder Polly, you should say something. Oh, but I don’t suppose you would care. It’s your little notebook that’s driven Colonel Mace to suicide – maybe Dr Solon as well!”

I wondered how to convince her, but I couldn’t think of anything that would get over the problem of the book. “I’m not a blackmailer,” was all I could say in response. I suppose it wasn’t sensible to add, “Miss Marple believes me.”

“Well, more fool her!” snapped Sarah and got to her feet again and marched out on me.


	10. Dr Smith's Story

“I once tried my hand at making some documents of my own,” Smith told me. He remained unperturbed by his imprisonment, seeming instead to regard it as a splendid opportunity to natter away to a captive audience. I suppose the life of an academic, especially one who goes round swiping valuable documents, must be a bit on the lonely side. “Imitated life as best as I could – turned out rather pretty. They didn’t understand that, either.”

It did at least pass the hours of captivity fairly swiftly without me having to ponder on the way the future had abruptly closed in on me, or worry about what Miss Smith and Miss Marple were up to. All the same, his morals seemed to be a bit lacking in some areas.

“You know, old chap, they might have seen them as forgeries.”

He sat up. “I only made them for myself. Of course, there was that little scrap of paper that did get out into the world and caused a furore. It would have been a shame to tell them the truth, when they were having such fun.”

“You’re clearly an intelligent, creative sort,” I said, since he was, despite edging towards barking. “Why do these things?”

He appeared struck by that. “Do you know, that’s an excellent question. You have an incisive mind.”

I waited to see if he was being sarcastic, but he appeared to mean it. “I don’t think so.”

“If you must know, I get bored, coped up in Namechester,” he said. “Oh, I go from archive to archive in my research, but I don’t have the financial backing to get out in the field.”

I frowned. “I thought Mackenzie said you were interested in palaeography?”

“I do, but my doctorate is in history and I’m an amateur archaeologist when I get the chance. However, one needs funding to go on a proper dig. Egypt, now – that would be something! Mesopotamia, India, China! Ah, to travel and see the world!”

I thought that he was beginning to remind me of someone else, but I couldn’t place it.

“Anything but this tedious, provincial existence.”

I wished he’d stop for a moment or two. “I like it here. If they’d only let me out of this cell and carry on as I was, I couldn’t ask for anything more.” Well, I amended silently, there was one other thing I was set on now, but that had probably always been out of the question, since even when she didn’t think me a villain, she thought me a buffoon.

*

I should have known not to bother with my own attempts to get out. Miss Marple established during my day of imprisonment that the Chancellor sisters had been awake all night when Polly was killed. Miss Thalia had had toothache and Miss Flavia had apparently been doing all she could to cure it. As they lived opposite me, they would have been sure to see me leaving or entering the house had I been out around midnight.

Miss Marple also enlisted Miss Rumford, who had already told the Inspector during his original investigations that she had been out walking her dog, as she wanted to talk a theory over to herself without disturbing Miss Fay. She had been right down the High Street and back again and passed the bottom of the hill just after midnight and had seen nothing, either.

Added to the fact that Dr Smith was still insisting that the thing about the ‘m’ wasn’t a joke and my own refusal to confess, Inspector Mackenzie was forced to release his second suspect due to lack of evidence, much to his annoyance.

“But,” he said, in proper warning, as we prepared to leave, “I still think you must be the blackmailer, Dr Sullivan, so I shall be keeping a close eye on you.”

I smiled at him. “Please do.”

Then Dr Smith and I left the police station, free men once more. Temporarily at any rate. 

*

“You know,” said Smith, as we left, “it’s interesting about that murder.”

I turned, but I had to clench my fists at his light reference to Polly’s death. Perhaps if I hadn’t seen the body, I’d be able to treat it as a joke as well, but I don’t think so. “Is it?”

“Yes,” he said. “Polly Wright. That’s exactly the name that I once –” He paused and coughed. “I suppose you’d call that forgery as well, although I called it helping out a friend in dire need.”

I stopped. “Smith,” I said. “Do you mean to tell me that you know something about Polly? Something about why she was killed?”

“Oh, no, no, no, nothing like that. It’s probably only coincidence. Wright – almost as common as Smith, isn’t it?”

I assented, recalling that Miss Barbara Wright was the village schoolteacher. “All the same, what did you mean?”

He threw a troubled look in my direction. “I suppose the Pollards still reside at Nether St Yorick?”

“They do,” I said, a little alarmed. “Why?”

He stopped and sat on a handy stone wall. “Maybe it is possible. You see, I once helped a friend give someone a new identity. I really can’t go into details. It wouldn’t be right. She came to me for help and I did what I could. If the girl later came back – it could be her.”

“I don’t understand.”

Smith said, “I’m not sure I want you to. But I know the family – they wouldn’t murder the poor girl, even if she did come back. Unless – I suppose I don’t really know _him_ at all.”

I took that to be a reference to the squire. He had been away so often since I had started my practice that I had little insight into his character, either.

“I’ll tell you,” he said, “if you’ll swear not to reveal it to another soul.”

I said, “But if it turns out to be the vital clue to the murder, what then? It’s all very well, protecting a friend, but what if they killed someone? Probably went round blackmailing half the village and set me up as well –”

“No,” he said again. “That doesn’t make sense. I read that book, remember? Lady Louisa was being blackmailed and over this very thing.”

I folded my arms. “Well, in that case, Mackenzie knows, so I don’t know why you’re being coy about telling me.”

“He knows one thing, not the whole,” he said. Then Smith took the plunge. “Sullivan, before Louisa married Pollard, she had a child. Don’t ask questions – it’s not our business. It’s complicated and she said the squire would have called off the engagement had he known. It was years ago but I already knew how to make a few little necessary alterations to the register – well, you know how it is. Anyhow, she gave the child up and nothing more was said.”

I waited.

“If she’s the same girl, then Polly Wright was Lady Louisa’s daughter,” he said. “But she’d never have killed her.”

I was inclined to agree, but I did wonder a little. Perhaps she hadn’t meant to, but in an effort to preserve her marriage, her status and her position – maybe it wasn’t impossible?

“I wonder if Polly knew,” I said. “I think she might have done. McCrimmon seemed to know about something involving her and the Pollards.”

Smith sighed. “Poor girl. Anyhow, I must be off home – do tell me how you get on.”

He was certainly an odd chap. It was a sharp reminder that I had no idea whether to believe anything he said or not.

*

I went round to Miss Marple’s right away, hurrying along the path bordered by neat rows of flowers up to her door.

“Miss Marple,” I told her, once I had been shown in by Martha, “you’re a positive wonder and I can’t thank you enough.”

She became pink and flustered. “It was nothing, Dr Sullivan. I’m sure the inspector would have come to the same conclusion eventually.”

“I’m not,” I said. “Anyhow, what other discoveries have you made?”

She took up her knitting. “Very little so far, I’m afraid, but I am expecting to hear from Mr Jackson soon.”

“Is it a good idea to let one suspect race after another?” I asked.

She shook her head as she clicked her needles. “I believe you are also a suspect, Dr Sullivan.”

“True. I suppose I had better go home and hope Mrs Hudson hasn’t given notice.”

*

Mrs Hudson wasn’t all that taken with her new notoriety as housekeeper to a doctor turned blackmailer and murder suspect, but she seemed to prefer lecturing me about it and gossiping to her friends to giving notice.

I ignored her as best as I could and then went to have a wash and a change of clothes. By the time I’d finished, I came back down to find the vicar waiting for me. After the past two days, I wasn’t pleased.

“Dr Sullivan,” Magister said, rising to greet me with the smallest of bows. “A pleasure to see you at liberty once more.”

I nodded at him. “I’m relieved as well. What did you want, Reverend?”

“I believe I have something of vital importance to divulge,” he said. “It appears to be of very little use informing Inspector Mackenzie, so I thought I may as well come and tell you.”

Well, this was a turn up for the books. After days of struggling to get anywhere, people were suddenly falling over themselves to divulge their secrets to me. “Go on.”

“Obviously, until yesterday I was convinced that you were the blackmailer. I was certain that your uncle had been – and who else could have so neatly inherited that set of secrets? However, on discovering that you were ignorant of what the notebook contained, I put my mind to unravelling the mystery.”

I leant forward. “And you think you know?”

“Bear in mind how wrong I have been until now,” he said apologetically. “I cannot be sure, but I do wonder about Professor Smith.”

I nearly burst out laughing, but I managed not to in the face of his gravity. “Professor Smith? But how could he have done any of it?”

“There’s a certain hollowed out tree where I am expected to –”

I started. “There really is a hollow oak tree? I thought the Inspector made that up.”

“I don’t think it’s an oak,” Magister corrected me. “But this is beside the point. I once, many months ago, saw Professor Smith in the vicinity, but thought no more of it. And on more than one occasion, I have seen him walking about Mill Cottage, even though he claims to be barely able to get about the house -.”

I smiled. “He likes to make a fuss, that’s all. I admit he’s a bit of an old fraud, but that doesn’t mean –”

“Hmm. But he is a frequent patient of yours, dear boy. I suspect he would have had ample opportunity to steal the book and replace it.”

For the first time, I began to take him seriously. I let my mouth fall open. “He said something – something about my uncle being fond of books. I didn’t think he meant anything by it, but maybe he did.”

“Who knows?” said Magister. “But if he was blackmailing others, who would be more likely to find out and confront him than his own secretary? And if he is not quite as frail as he claims, then he might well have been able to take the girl by surprise.”

I nodded. “I follow you. But you see – there’s something you don’t know – something that involves Miss Wright and the Pollards. I wonder about Sir Kastchei, or even his wife.”

“Ah,” he said. “Still, you will let Miss Marple and the blundering Inspector know, won’t you?”

I said, “Why don’t you tell them yourself?”

“The Inspector knows the truth about my past, but I hope very much that the rest of the village – including the excellent Miss Jane Marple and, in particular, my charming but inappropriate wife – don’t. I would prefer that she did not learn that I had been blackmailed along with Colonel Mace and Lady Louisa.”

That made sense, although if anyone knew, it would be Miss Marple. “I promise.”


	11. Cure For A Headache

It troubled me for a while afterwards. I was still unconvinced, aware that the Pollards had a stronger motive for murder, but it did seem to all add up to Smith (the Professor, that was, not the chap at the pub, nor the forger, nor Sarah) being the blackmailer. Now that the vicar had planted the idea in my head, I could not uproot it.

With it, came a vision of Miss Smith paying him visits for that precious interview of hers. If it was true, she was so curious and bright, she might uncover the truth and make the same mistake as Polly about what he was capable of. I mean, if he was the murderer, which he might not be. Might be Magister, trying to throw me off the scent or something.

Still, she ought to know. She would probably consider me a liar, but it could hardly be worse than what she already thought of me. At least she would be warned and I could always send her to ask the vicar if she doubted me.

I set off towards The Dark Horse in the hope of finding her.

*

Mrs Briggs eyed me in that way that put me in mind of a fierce sort of bird (probably one with talons and a vicious beak) and demanded to know what I – a murder suspect – wanted with one of her guests.

“I only need to tell her something,” I said. “Please, just ask her, if she’s in. If not, I’ll write her a note.”

She pushed the movable section of the bar counter up with a bang and charged off up the stairs while I watched and waited, my mouth dry and my heart thudding. What if Sarah refused to believe me? It would sound as incredible as the rest.

“She’s not answering,” said Mrs Briggs, returning. “You’d better leave your note.”

I nodded, biting back my disappointment. I pulled out a sheet of paper and contemplated what to write.

“It’s funny,” she added, “because I’d swear the other gentleman only just left and I didn’t see her go out. Maybe she wants to be left alone.”

I was so busy trying to compose my letter that I nearly missed the significance of what she had said. “Wait. What other gentlemen?”

“Only that old scientist from Mill Cottage,” she said, with a laugh at my reaction.

I caught hold of her, dropping both paper and pen. “Smith? Professor Smith came to see her – and you let him go upstairs?”

“Well, he was rather elderly,” she said. “It was as much as he could do to get up there.”

I looked at her. “If you have a spare key, go and fetch it. And send someone round for my bag!”

“Dr Sullivan?”

I turned. “If I’m wrong, people can laugh all they like, but better safe than sorry!”

*

I raced up the stairs and then realised that I had no idea which of the rooms she was in. I had to shout back down for Mrs Briggs, who came to join me with the key, still giving me suspicious looks.

She opened the nearest door and I rushed in. Sarah was lying on the floor, probably fallen from the chair beside her. On the small table next to it was a glass. As I reached it, I noted a small packet of some powder. I grabbed at it and then knelt beside her.

“Sarah? Miss Smith? Can you hear me?”

Mrs Briggs was behind me. She pulled a piece of paper off the table. “Suicide,” she gasped. “What possessed the girl?”

“It’s not suicide,” I said. “It’s murder if it’s anything – only it’s not because we’re going to save her. Now, go down stairs and call for an ambulance. And fetch some salt and a glass of water!”

She sniffed. “Bossy, aren’t you?”

“Quickly!” I shouted at her and then turned back to Sarah, pulling her up and shaking her. “Sarah, come on…”

*

She stirred a little. I gave her a gentle slap to the face. She managed to open her eyes and looked back at me fuzzily. As it registered, she tried to move away.

“Honestly,” I said. “Professor Smith tried to poison you, so you should know it’s not me you have to be afraid of.”

Mrs Briggs returned with the water and salt. I glanced up at her. “And a basin, please.”

“Anything else?” she snapped. I wondered about the priorities of some people around here.

I called after her. “Actually, yes. You should send for Inspector Mackenzie as well. Tell him it’s urgent.”

*

I held the glass to her lips. “Come on, Sarah. Drink this.”

She did so, but she was hardly herself and she spat it back out again.

“Sarah,” I said, since it was literally a matter of life or death, “you’ve got to swallow it. And if you don’t, I’ll only have to try something worse. I could get Mrs Briggs to go and find the mustard – and, damn it all, I’m not the one trying to poison you!”

She gave up her protests after that, although she grimaced as she swallowed the salt water. Moments later, I had cause to be glad I’d remember to ask Mrs Briggs to fetch a basin. (She’d got into the swing of the emergency now, even coming back with a ragged towel, a glass of plain water and a blanket).

I kept hold of Sarah till she’d finished and then, just to be on the safe side, made her drink some more of the mixture. She was more herself now, enough to manage a glare in my direction and a threat to kill me later.

“Be my guest, old thing,” I said, as she swallowed it. “As long as you’re alive to make the attempt, you take whatever revenge you like.”

I removed the glass and waited for the inevitable result but I thought we’d already rid her of a good deal of the poison. Thank goodness we’d found her in time. I steadied her as she retched again and passed her the old towel when she’d done.

Eventually, she leant back against the foot of the bed, where I’d propped her up and said shakily, “I’ll promise never to get you arrested again, if you swear you’ll let me die in peace next time.”

“Sorry, old girl,” I said, unable to keep the smile out of my voice, “I don’t make promises I don’t intend to keep.”

*

She was still pale and clearly not fit to be doing anything yet, but she insisted on trying to get up.

“This is no time for being the plucky heroine,” I instructed her. “Sit still and stop complaining. You’re lucky you’re alive.”

She lifted her head, weak but stubborn as always. “Don’t talk as if I’m some damsel in distress. I’m the detective.”

I smiled to myself. I might not be the brightest spark in the box and I’d never amount to anything more than a Dr Watson if this were a mystery story, but I do know some things. “You’re the plucky heroine. I don’t think you could ever manage to be anything else, old girl.”

“You’re infuriating,” she accused. “O-oh. I feel sick.”

“If you will go around letting people try to poison you, that’s only to be expected,” I pointed out. “Let’s just wait for the inspector to arrive, shall we?”

“Harry,” she said quietly as I checked her pulse again. “Thank you.”

I shook my head at her. “It’s only my job, Sarah.”

She closed her eyes, but she squeezed my hand. “I’m sorry I thought you were the murderer.”

“Perfectly understandable,” I said, since she was unwell and needed to be humoured.

*

“Well, well, well,” said Inspector Mackenzie as he entered the room for the second time that afternoon. The first time, he’d turned up at the same time as the ambulance and hared out after Smith, while I saw to getting Sarah off to hospital. 

Now he stared at me with his arms folded.

“What?” I said. “Couldn’t you find him?”

He coughed. “The thing is, Dr Sullivan, reckoned he was shocked to hear it and said you were the one who prescribed the headache powder. He only lent it to Miss Smith when she complained of a migraine. Which is pretty much what Miss Smith said. I can’t arrest him without more evidence.”

“That hasn’t stopped you before,” I said, beginning to feel irritated. We’d all but caught the fellow in the act and now Mackenzie wanted proof?

He stopped, looking over the table, the glass and the note still sitting there. “Hallo. What’s this – suicide after all?”

“Of course not,” I said. “I’ve spoken to Sarah and she certainly didn’t try to kill herself!”

He brightened. “Well, the note’s odd, then. That’s something.”

“Can I have a look?” I asked and took it from him. It was disconcerting to see the words there, and in Sarah’s own hand. I can’t go on… This is the last straw…

I stopped and gave Mackenzie a smile. “We’ve got him. I know what this is – it’s the letter he dictated to Miss Smith when we went around the other day. Or at least, part of it. The cunning old devil – he was planning for this even then!”

“Hmm,” said Mackenzie. “I don’t suppose that will do, either. We need something a little more solid than that.”

I paced about the room. “But why did he try to kill her? Why risk something like that for no reason? He wouldn’t.”

“It might have been you,” he reminded me.

I glared at him. “Oh, yes – and then I changed my mind and decided to save her life instead?”

“Well, if Smith is right, you were trying to murder him because he saw you with the book, not Miss Smith.”

I closed my eyes and tried to think about it. The inspector was being no help whatsoever. “There’s only one answer I can think of. She’s been interviewing him over the last week. What if he said something he didn’t intend to? He’s pretty vain and he might have let something slip. And he’d realise that Sarah’s bright enough to put two and two together once she started typing everything up. In which case –”

I made a dive for her notebook, still on the bedside table. I showed it to Mackenzie. “See? Someone’s ripped out a page or two.”

“You had plenty of time to do that to corroborate your story,” he said.

I was tempted to hit him with the notebook, but I had a feeling he wouldn’t worry about arresting me a second time. It was bad enough having him think me a murderer, but letting Smith wander about, free to try and kill Sarah again – or start on someone else – was unthinkable.

“I have an idea,” Mackenzie said suddenly. “Listen to me, young Sullivan. This should prove who’s the real killer around here.”

*

“Are you sure about this?” I asked. I was getting cold feet about the whole thing now that it came to it. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to do everything I could to bring the fellow to justice, but I wasn’t sure I could trust Mackenzie not to turn up a little too late.

The Inspector munched on sandwiches provided by Mrs Briggs, who had discovered that having someone nearly murdered in the pub had created sudden interest and a number of paying customers downstairs. She’d instantly mellowed and offered us lunch on the house.

“Look, Sullivan,” he said. “I’m in an impossible position. Now, if you go to him with this note of yours and confront him, past behaviour – if I’m to believe you – indicates that he’ll have to try and be rid of you. At which point, Benton and I burst in and arrest him.”

I nodded. “I understand. I’m only worried that you might arrest him _after_ he’s killed me.”

“Well, I’ll know you’re innocent then, if that’s any consolation. What do you say?”

I had little choice. There was nothing to stop the fellow from going to the hospital and trying to hurt Sarah or whatever he took it into his head to do as a follow up to curing a headache with arsenic. If the vicar had realised the truth, maybe he’d be hanging from the rafters with a suicide note pinned to the lectern next.

“I agree.”

Mackenzie swallowed the last few crumbs of his roast beef sandwich and brushed down his tunic. “Capital. And if you start trying to kill him, we’ll burst in and arrest you.”

“Thank you, inspector.”

*

I headed off towards Mill Cottage, only to meet Miss Rumford on the way. She waved at me and I moved across to her.

“Sorry to bother you, Sullivan,” she said in her abrupt manner, “but if you’re off to see Smith, I gather he went to call on you.”

I stared at her.

“I expect he’s complaining about his joints again,” she said with a disapproving sniff.

I nodded. “Mmph. Yes. I expect so.”

I turned round and hurried off, followed at a not very inconspicuous distance by Benton and Mackenzie. What was this about? Did he intend to try and do away with me as well? It seemed rather reckless of him.

*

I entered the house, careful to leave the door ajar behind me, so that the two policemen wouldn’t be left outside and crept down the hallway and peered into the lounge. Smith was sitting in there, cool as you like, humming to himself and reading one of my medical textbooks. (The tiger bearded in his den, or what-have-you, except it wasn’t his den, it was my house.)

“Looking for more poisons, are you?” I demanded, remembering the part I had to play. “You’ve got a nerve.”

He chuckled slightly and put the book down. “Really, my dear boy, you do say some strange things. If I innocently pass on medicine given to me by my GP, I don’t see that I can be expected to realise that someone had placed arsenic inside it. What it says about you, on the other hand –”

“I haven’t been trying to poison anyone,” I said. “You have. And you had the book – you stole it from me. You must have done.”

He got to his feet. “I must have done? Hardly logical, Sullivan. There are any number of people in this village who had the opportunity. You don’t take very good care of your belongings, do you? But let us not go into that, since several people can testify to seeing the book in your possession throughout your time here.”

I wondered if the Inspector would arrest me if I hit the Professor. At this point, he probably would. Instead, I held out the note. “Explain this one away!”

“The poor girl,” he said with a shake of his head. “She must have intended to kill herself in any case – ironic that you inadvertently gave her a helping hand.”

I folded my arms. “Smith, I heard you dictate that letter to Miss Smith. And since she’s not dead, she’ll be able to confirm that. You’re finished.”

“Oh, no,” he said, meeting my gaze with ice blue eyes. “I’m not finished at all, but I think you are, Dr Sullivan. This last little accident was one step too far for you and you’ve finally decided to show some remorse at your crimes. You don’t feel like writing a confession, do you?”

I swallowed. Despite the fact that he was hardly any match for me and I had two policemen waiting for my call somewhere in the house, I still felt cold. He seemed so confident in himself, I could almost have believed him, even though I knew what rot he was spouting. “No.”

“I thought that was a little too much to hope for,” he sighed, “but I’m sure everyone else will make the inference and we can all return to normal. Worth dying for, wouldn’t you say?”

I clenched my fists. “No. Besides, I don’t see what you can do now that you’ve told me.”

“Really?” he said with scorn. “No, I don’t suppose you do. That, my dear boy, is your mistake and my good fortune.”

I moved forward. “Well, you can just get out of here now!”

“How rude,” he said and then suddenly, doubled up and sat back down on the sofa in apparent agony.

I watched him, unmoved. “I’m not going to fall for that one, Smith.”

“My knee,” he said, grimacing. “Help me up, at least.”

I glared. “I don’t think so. You old fraud.”

He began to whimper pitifully and was clearly not about to move from his position. I’d had about as much of his performance as I could take. I moved forward impatiently and dragged him to his feet, about to shout for Mackenzie to give me a hand, when Smith – who I belatedly realised, must have been clutching something with his other hand, hidden by the side of the sofa – hit me hard, knocking me to the ground. I tried to get up, too stunned to yell, but he struck me again – I saw this time (in between stars) that it was his cane. I blacked out.

*

I swam in and out of consciousness, vaguely aware of being dragged somewhere. The hypocrite, I thought muzzily, before passing out again. So much for the arthritis, and who was his doctor? Me, that’s who. I really should have noticed something before it came to this. 

The next thing I knew, the ground was cold beneath me and someone – presumably Smith was banging something about behind me. I wondered where Mackenzie and Benton had got to and tried to sit, but the old man must have hit me again.

The last time, it was still dark, but by the time I’d begun to understand why – and what that slight, hissing sound was – it was far too late.


	12. The Solution Becomes Clear

“Dr Sullivan!”

I was too groggy to understand where I was, or who was shouting at me this time. I gasped out, coughing and choking for breath and gradually began to realise that I was in my own kitchen, leaning against one of the cupboards.

“Men,” said Mrs Hudson, looking down at me from what seemed a great height. “Any sensible person would know that is not the correct use for an oven. I dread to think what you’d try to do if I let you loose near the kettle.”

I decided that there was no answer to that and instead put all my efforts into carrying on breathing for the next few minutes. It seemed about my luck to be nearly killed by some vicious old man and then lectured about it by my housekeeper.

“Smith?” I tried eventually and then, with a frown, “Mackenzie?”

“Professor Smith is over there,” she said, pointing. He was lying at the other end of the kitchen. “I came back in, just as he had finished with you, so I hit him over the head with my rolling pin and tied him up with some string.”

I said, “Oh.” 

“I haven’t seen that Inspector, though. Two men cluttering up my nice kitchen is bad enough.”

I would have liked to remove myself from said kitchen, but a tentative movement made it clear that I was rapidly developing a splitting headache and feeling too nauseous to risk trying it. She’d have even more to say if I threw up over the clean floor. I took a deep breath, however, because something was still not right. “I’m much obliged, Mrs Hudson. But there should be two policemen somewhere in the house.”

“Oh, dear,” she said, surveying me with what might even have been sympathy. “I think he must have hit you a little too hard. Wait, there’s that odd noise again.”

She went off to investigate and I closed my eyes and waited for her to return, as there was nothing else I could do.

*

“Dr Sullivan?” she said, as she returned. “You’re not dead, are you?”

I opened my eyes to see my housekeeper with the inspector behind her. “No, of course I’m not. Oh, Mackenzie. There you are. What on earth happened to you?”

“Well,” said Benton, who had also come into the kitchen, “the Inspector wanted to be sure that Smith didn’t spot us so he felt it was best to close the door of the cupboard under the stairs behind us. Unfortunately, once he had, we couldn’t open it again.”

Mrs Hudson had her hands on her hips. “I found them in there, next to all my cleaning things and the jam jars. That Inspector had his fingers in the strawberry jam.”

“And excellent strawberry jam it was, too,” Mackenzie told her and then looked down at me and across at Smith. “Ah. Well, what did I tell you? It did the trick, didn’t it?”

I was feeling too rotten to point out that this was no thanks to him. If it weren’t for Mrs H, he’d still be in the cupboard with Benton, I’d be a goner, and Smith would have been off again, scot free.

“Perhaps,” I said, feeling that I could risk it now, “you two could help me up.”

Mrs Hudson nodded. “Yes, please do. Lying around on the kitchen floor in the way like that – it’s off-putting and I daresay you’ll all still be wanting tea?”

“Sounds lovely,” approved the inspector. “Right, Benton, give me a hand with the doctor and then we’d best cart him off to the hospital and Smith can come back to the station with us.”

The housekeeper watched as they helped me up and then asked if we wanted milk or sugar.

“Both,” said the Inspector cheerfully. “Thanks, Mrs Hudson. You’re a treasure.”

***

Miss Marple smiled at me. “I’m so glad to see you looking yourself again, Dr Sullivan. And I hear that Smith has finally confessed.”

“Yes,” I said. “Mackenzie’s happy about it all – nothing he likes better than a crime all neatly solved and wrapped up properly.”

Sarah was perched on the arm of the chair next to me in Miss Marple’s sitting room. “The Inspector told me that when he got back to Namechester after arresting Smith, he found a note from you to tell him you thought Smith must be the killer. How did you know?”

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say I _knew_ ,” Miss Marple said, “but after all, he did seem the most likely person to have had the opportunity to switch the notebooks. He was Dr Sullivan’s most frequent patient, after all.”

I sighed. “I should have noticed something.”

“Don’t worry, Dr Sullivan,” she said, with a quick little smile at Sarah. “I wouldn’t have expected you to. You see, you don’t have the sort of mind that suspects the worst of people and I’m afraid that I seem to. It all comes of living in a village. One _sees_ things.”

Sarah had become properly acquainted with Miss Marple over the last few days and there had been no more laughing at my ‘little old lady’. “Oh, yes. Who did Smith remind you of, then?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say I’d met anybody _quite_ like Professor Smith, but there was that journalist who rented out Primrose Cottage. He had a malicious streak – you couldn’t trust him with even the most innocent pieces of information before he had to use it to start ill-natured gossip.”

Miss Smith bit her lip at the reference to gossip, because few people liked talking about her neighbours more than Miss Marple.

She caught the look. “I’m interested in my neighbours – that’s only right – but not gossip, Miss Smith – nothing _ill-natured_ or slanderous.”

Sarah folded her arms. “You knew it wasn’t Harry, either. I mean, Dr Sullivan.”

“Well, I would have thought that was obvious,” she said, with a small laugh. Then she turned slightly pink and said, “I didn’t mean to be rude, doctor, but I knew we were dealing with –”

“I know,” I said for her, “a diabolically clever mind, not some imbecile of a village GP.”

She gave me a smile. “That wasn’t it at all, Dr Sullivan. Or in a way, that sums it up perfectly.”

“Eh?” I said, confused again.

"You see, in my small experience, the murderers I’ve come across have all had one thing in common, even though they all had quite different motives and appearances. They were all thoroughly selfish – vain, too, very often. _Nothing_ could be less like Dr Sullivan.”

I wasn’t sure whether to be flattered or insulted. Sarah looked away, probably trying not to laugh. 

“I must say,” I put in, “I still don’t understand the half of it. Was Polly really Lady Louisa’s daughter and what did McCrimmon have to do with it all? What about Dr Solon and Colonel Mace?”

Miss Marple leant over and patted my knee. “Oh, it was quite simple, really. It only _seems_ complicated. It’s all down to that book of your uncle’s. Quite a poisonous little volume. I’m so glad he was never my doctor.”

“Go on,” I said, “explain to us.”

Sarah nodded. “You have to. After all, Smith nearly killed both of us, so I think we deserve to know the truth.”

“Yes,” she said. “Oh dear, I should have prevented that. I had a feeling that Smith might regret talking to you, Sarah, dear, but I didn’t expect him to go after Dr Sullivan like that.” She then eyed me sternly. “And I do think you could have been a little more _careful_.”

I blushed, because it was humiliating to have been attacked by an elderly professor in one’s own home. “I tried, but not much I could do about Inspector Mackenzie locking himself in the cupboard, was there?”

“Anyway,” Miss Marple continued, “the trouble was all down to that book – and Polly Wright herself. Once it was known that it had been found, Dr Solon attempted to retrieve it, although if he had only _thought_ , he would have realised that Mackenzie must have had it by that time. I suppose after that, he didn’t think it mattered what happened to him, as he was quite ruined. Nobody likes to think that the family doctor has been conducting strange experiments in –”

I interrupted, “And Colonel Mace?”

“Dr Sullivan,” she said, lowering her tone, “I don’t wish to be unkind, but it seems to me that anyone might kill themselves if they were trapped in an affair with Mrs A from the tea shop.”

I blanched at the thought. “What? Not really?”

“Yes. I’m afraid that the Brigadier leaving so _unexpectedly_ like that did cause some strange alterations to the plot.”

I gaped then, although Sarah looked lost, never having met Lethbridge-Stewart. “You’re not saying that the Brig and Mrs A –”

“No, not at all,” she assured me. “Oh, dear, no. Of course not. But after he left, somebody still had to be having an affair and the poor Colonel _was_ his replacement.”

I was still shocked. “The Brigadier was having an affair with someone? I don’t believe it!”

“Does this have anything to do with anything?” Sarah asked, understandably not so interested in local gossip about people she’d never met. 

Miss Marple gave me a slight smile. “Not currently, Dr Sullivan. But once, a number of years ago, shall we say? And, yes, it does have quite a lot to do with the events of the past few weeks.”

I was only glad I was sitting down. I leant forward and lowered my voice, unable to help it. “You don’t mean –?”

“Will you two stop talking in a foreign language and explain?” said Sarah.

I turned my head. “Doesn’t matter, old thing. As you said, you don’t even know the chap.”

“Somebody had to be Polly’s father,” said Miss Marple placidly. “I’m surprised it didn’t occur to anyone else.”

I shook my head. “I can still hardly believe any of it. Colonel Mace and Mrs A – and now the Brig and Lady Pollard.”

Sarah was watching me in amusement. “Harry,” she said, “you must have had that book a good few weeks at least before Smith stole it off you. Are you really still the only person in the village who doesn’t know what was in it?”

“Yes,” I said. “I told you, I never looked at it, not until after he’d swapped them round. And now Inspector Mackenzie’s got it and he’s going to burn it once he’s finished with it.”

Miss Marple had a satisfied glint in her eye. “I’m glad. It’s the proper ending for it.”

“What about Polly, then?” asked Sarah.

She sighed. “The poor girl. She didn’t understand what sort of man Smith was – positively _wicked_. She accepted the post with him to discover the truth about her birth and her real family. She was paying McCrimmon to find out if it was Lady Louisa, as she had been led to believe. He, of course, had a foothold in the house, as he was walking out with young Kirsty’s cousin.”

“And several others, from what I hear,” I said. (Not that I held it against him that he’d knocked me over the head for no good reason.)

Miss Marple nodded. “So like young Richard, the grocer’s assistant, years ago. Any rate, that was where he came into it. Of course, once you came looking for him, the silly boy panicked and ran away. Luckily, Mr Jackson brought him back before any harm was done, but he’s lost his job at the garage.”

“A good thing, too,” I said.

Sarah gave me a startled look and even Miss Marple appeared puzzled. It seemed that for once I knew something that they didn’t. 

I grinned. “When I went back to see if there was anything left of my car, the garage owner told me that McCrimmon had probably been to blame for that, because he never could tell the difference between oil and brake fluid and what-have-you, so he’d leapt on his running off as an excuse to sack him.”

“Oh,” said Sarah. 

“But Polly?” I prompted.

She shook her head. “She was his secretary and as inquisitive as the next girl. Most likely, she saw something with her mother’s name on – of course, she would have looked. I imagine that once she found out what he was up to, she confronted him and threatened to tell if he didn’t stop. As I said, she had no idea what sort of man she was dealing with.”

“I’m glad he’s safely locked up,” said Sarah with a shudder.

I put a hand on her arm. “So am I.”

“Anyway,” said Sarah, getting to her feet, “we must be off, as I need to pack. I’ve work to get back to, you know – and a story to write up.” She smiled at Miss Marple and bent down to kiss her on the cheek.

Miss Marple pressed her hand in return. “I hope this won’t be the last we see of you, Miss Smith. I’m _sure_ that Dr Sullivan will agree with me.”

She gave me a wicked twinkle and I blushed. Really, the old ladies around here.

*

“Well now, old thing,” I said, walking Miss Smith back to the Dark Horse. “I hope you’ll let me call on you when I’m in town.”

She laughed at me and said, “Dr Sullivan – Harry -?”

“Yes?” I said, moving nearer.

Perhaps it’s not the thing to write this here, but I’m dashed well going to or I may not believe it myself. She caught hold of me by the lapels of my jacket and pulled me down to kiss me and not just a peck on the cheek, either. Obviously, once I recovered from the shock, I gave her all the assistance I could. 

“You’d better,” she told me eventually.

I stared at her dazedly. “Eh?”

“Come to visit,” she reminded me. “And if you have any more murders, you call me in straight away.”

I smiled at that and promised her that I would. I reflected with some amusement that, for the first time since this whole thing began, I had a motive for murder.


End file.
